


All I See Is You

by Hirochii



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blind Character, Concensual, Crossdressing, Deaf-blind, Exploration by Touch, Love, M/M, Power bottom Hiro, hidashi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-18 19:50:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 70,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7328140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hirochii/pseuds/Hirochii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in an AU where Hiro Hamada has been deafblind since he was a child which was insitgated by the same lab-made illness that killed his parents.  His older brother Tadashi has always been his eyes and ears.  Inspired by Hiro, Tadashi is working on technology that will bring back his brother’s senses but not everything goes according to plan and their feelings are explored by touch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Too Much, Too Soon

**Author's Note:**

> As you can probably guess, Baymax will take a different form in this fanfic but he will still be present in his own way. The bond between the Hamada brothers are exceptionally strong due to their reliance on each other and their feelings will evolve as the story progresses. Please comment your feedback!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N: To new readers, have fun on this journey! It’s going to be a long one, with lots of ups and downs. This first chapter is really just a prologue to set the scene. 
> 
> To those re-reading - thank-you for your continued support! I love all of you and your comments are very dear to me.

Hiro shut his laptop shut with a snap, moved it away from himself and rested his head on his desk with a soft thud. Tadashi immediately moved to sit down by his side and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Hiro was easily frustrated, his boundless intelligence hampered by his physical limitations.

Hiro Hamada was a 14 year old boy genius. He could probably invent anything he set his mind to. There were only a couple of minor setbacks. He was deaf, and he was blind.

He wasn’t born handicapped; he was originally a healthy, albeit exceptionally talented kid. Unfortunately their father’s work in biological toxins had been all too successful. It was a highly publicised case as there was fear that an outbreak would occur, although the exact details were left out. There was a small comfort that the eldest Hamada brother had been on a school trip during the inception.

The man-made infectious agents had claimed the life of their parents and had spread to their three year old child. While the cure was developed too late for their parents, the treatment had been tested on Hiro and stopped the deadly virus from becoming lethal. The antidote had been imperfect.

It was Hiro’s vision that left first. It was sudden, when he was 4. The last thing he saw was Tadashi, it was his brother’s birthday, and he was about to blow out his candles for his 9th birthday. His hearing began to leave after that. The process was slow but by the age of 6 he was shut out from the outside world.

Tadashi carefully placed Hiro’s thumb against his lower lip, causing Hiro to sit up and instinctively spread his remaining fingers along his brother’s face and neck.  
“Hiro, what can I help you with?”

Tadashi could communicate with Hiro this way through vibrations, motions of his jaw and feeling Tadashi’s facial expression. It was their very own intimate way of speaking as he found the Tadoma Method did not work quite as well with anyone else.  
“There’s an error in my coding but I can’t find it.”

Despite Tadashi’s efforts to encourage him, Hiro did not have much confidence speaking around anyone who wasn’t Tadashi or Aunt Cass. His cadence and tone was a little bit off, especially on inflections on words he learnt post-deafness and the occasional crack from puberty wasn’t assisting.

“Let me take a look.”

Tadashi leaned over and opened up Hiro’s laptop where he had been working on programming a machine which could be used to input braille as a person was speaking in real time. It was an impressive piece of software design where he was using Java for the high-level behavior with C++ dll's to interface with the hardware.

Finding errors in code was time consuming enough for normal students, but going through and feeling the code in braille would be ten-fold the amount of effort. The patience required for such a task was more than Hiro could handle today, leaving his brain just a little bit fried.

“You’re nearly there,” Tadashi reassured Hiro, “let me look through it tonight and I’ll finish off the rest.”

Hiro nodded. His little brother had largely worked on the project by himself over the past year, but it was the older Hamada brother that designed and built the braille laptop interface he was using to program in. It made sense for Hiro to pass back the reins now that his project was nearing completion.

Resigned, Hiro moved his hand from Tadashi’s face and found his neck. He drew his arms around his big brother and transferred himself into Tadashi’s lap. He hid his head in the crook of his brother’s neck, feeling the warmth against his face and breathing in his scent.

Tadashi held the boy close, chin resting in his messy hair. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment. Hiro was often hard to calm down, and seemed only at peace when they were together despite Hiro’s tendency toward independence.  
Despite Tadashi’s original suggestion to home-school Hiro now that he had graduated, Hiro still attended a normal school, which had his curriculum sent to his handheld device. Hiro had insisted for Tadashi to apply for SFIT.

_“’Dashi… don’t let me hold you back.”_ Hiro had said quietly, the earnest in his voice finally pushing him to apply.

It had pained Tadashi that his little brother considered himself a burden, when really he was Tadashi’s reason for being. Without his brother, he had nothing keeping him there. Despite reservations of leaving Hiro alone in high school, Tadashi had applied to SFIT and had been accepted.

He was working on some tech to give Hiro his sight and sound back and only just last month he had a major breakthrough. He had restored full vision to five of his test subjects. It was only very early days for such technology, but Tadashi had a good feeling.

After ten minutes of silence, Tadashi kissed Hiro on the forehead. Hiro reached up to Tadashi’s lips and face to listen.

“Come with me, I’m going to show you SFIT.”

His eyebrows furrowed, clearly perplexed as he hadn’t been to his nerd school before, but he nodded in agreement and stood up. Tadashi grabbed his hand to lead the way down the stairs to his scooter.

Aunt Cass saw them leaving the café and weaved her way over to Tadashi and Hiro.

“Where are you two going?” It was a Saturday evening and they usually kept themselves shut in.

“Today’s the day! I have a feeling!” Tadashi bellowed happily over his shoulder not wanting to pause in step lest he falter on his mission.

Aunt Cass wished him luck. As they left on the scooter she had a sudden nervous feeling that something would go wrong like it had eleven years ago. She shook it off, Tadashi knew what he was doing and would never bring harm to Hiro.  
Tadashi drove at a moderate pace to SFIT. Hiro sat behind him, hugging his stomach tightly, cheek pressed against his back. Last year when he first got his scooter he had bought a sidecar for Hiro to sit in for safety. Hiro had flat out refused to sit in the kiddy car. Even without his vision he had enough sense to find the prospect embarrassing.

The institute halls were nearly empty and Hiro walked for what felt like miles in unfamiliar territory. Finally they reached Tadashi’s lab which Tadashi quickly co-signed, “We’re here.”

Tadashi moved Hiro past the apparatuses to lie down onto a dentist styled chair and began to explain his project to him.

“While at SFIT my thesis project has been working on something to help you.”

Hiro nodded, impatient to find out what his brother had created. Hiro felt a twinge of disappointment that Tadashi was wasting his thesis on him, but he wasn’t surprised. He had been spending less and less time with Hiro as the year passed so he knew Tadashi had been working on something big.

“Open your eyes for me Hiro. It’s easier if I show you.”

Hiro obliged. He could only see lights and shadow, the lights often gave him headaches and he preferred to keep his eyes shut, but even that wasn’t complete darkness. He sat still as he felt his brother pry open one of his eyes wider, which was then held in place by something cold and metal before the other eye was given the same treatment. If it had been anyone else doing this to him he would have freaked out, but he held himself still and took deep breaths.

Tadashi placed what looked like clear contacts into Hiro’s eyes, but they were thicker than usual containing nano-technology that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Holding onto Hiro’s hand with his left, Tadashi played with some configurations on his computer with his right and a robotic voice started counting down.

“Syncing with Baymax in 3… 2… 1…”

Hiro screamed, his senses overwhelmed by the light.


	2. Day is Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going back in time a little bit because I'm mean. This chapter went through quite a few different directions and drafts, but I'm glad to finally have submitted it through. It was challenging to write this, and I attempted to leave out a lot of visual queues to simulate how Hiro feels. Please note that this can be quite a sensitive piece of fiction.
> 
> On another note, this fanfic is also quite educational to a degree, and all the techniques such as the Tadoma Method and Japanese Fingerbraille are real techniques, albeit a little outdated given current braille technology. I have taken care to research some of the problems that people growing up deafblind, as well as what problems caregivers can come across and how they are addressed.

Chapter 2: Day is Night

For Hiro, night is day and day is night.

He loved sleeping. It was the only time he felt normal. People born blind could not see in their dreams. Hiro was lucky enough to have experienced the precious sensations of sight and sound before they were stolen away from him. 

But his dreams had always been bittersweet. 

When he was very young he used to have dreams about superpowers and woke up with the feeling that he could fly, his dreams feeling so realistic that it took him a moment to return to reality. Those dreams had slowly been replaced with largely regular scenarios. Now when Hiro woke up to reality every morning, it was sight and sound that were his missing superpowers.

But lately, Hiro had been waking up anxious.

His dreams were becoming dull, their pictures fading and the sounds coming in and out of clarity. It was a process which had been happening slowly over the past couple of years, but it had only become noticeable to Hiro in the last three months. His experience in darkness was longer than his treasured memories in the light, and it was affecting his sleep.

And today what he had feared finally happened.

His dream was just as empty and void as his reality.

It took Hiro a moment to realise he was awake. His dream had felt so realistic and without the dramatic change from imagination to reality it took longer to comprehend that he was lying safely in his own bed.

His face felt wet, he must have been crying in his sleep. He rolled himself over, planting himself face down into his pillow. His teeth grinded hard against each other, a portion of the pillow clenched in his jaw to mask his weeping as hushed heavy sobs racked throughout his body. 

He hated this. He hated this!

He hated that he had been robbed of his sight again. He hated that he hadn’t adjusted to his fate. He hated that he was so weak.

Strong hands wrapped themselves around his body and he was gently lifted into the arms of his brother. Hiro clung to the older boy, hiding his face in his broad chest.

He hated that he couldn’t live without Tadashi.

Nearly a quarter of all dreams a person without vision have are nightmares. Often they are nightmares about daily possible scenarios as the brain’s way of rehearsing potential threats. Of late Hiro has had a shift in what his brain imagined at night. Some of his new dreams were pleasant, and mostly about Tadashi and his strong and gentle touch which brought out some uncomfortable questions about his body which he had been too shy to ask. But the worst of the dreams were very real fears such as getting hit by a car, fire alarms that he couldn’t hear, falling into a pot hole, not getting dressed correctly or even entering the wrong bathroom.

And Hiro’s nightmare? He had lost Tadashi.

His last visual memory was of Tadashi on his ninth birthday. He had felt Tadashi change a lot since then, and his imagination had helped visualize what his brother looked like, but the older Hiro became, the less clear his mind’s eye worked on creating a mental image of his brother. Tadashi had always felt so much bigger than him, but in the last few years Tadashi’s shoulders had broadened to fill out his once slender frame and his jaw felt chiselled. His Adam’s apple was prominent on his silky neck and the vibrations of his voice rumbled a touch heavier. His scent had also changed, it wasn’t strong but it was a soft masculine musk that was distinctly Tadashi. It was a scent that made him feel safe. 

Tadashi had become a man and Hiro was holding him back.

Tadashi, his big brother who was smart enough to change the world if he put his mind to it was being held back by his handicapped little brother, and Hiro hated it.

Hiro’s thoughts blanked when Tadashi planted a tender kiss on his forehead.

“I’m sorry.” Hiro whispered.

Tadashi was becoming exceedingly worried about Hiro. His bouts of anxiety were becoming more frequent and it pained him to see Hiro in such a state. Hiro had been distancing himself from Tadashi for some time, his queries usually shaken off. Tadashi had chalked it up to adolescent mood swings, which was an alarming prospect to deal with, but this was the first time Hiro hadn’t pushed him away in the past couple of months. He wasn’t going to let this opportunity to find out exactly what was worrying Hiro pass by.

Both of his hands were taken by one of Tadashi’s. It was rare for Tadashi to communicate like this, both boys usually preferring the Tadoma Method. Tadashi only used this technique when he wanted to make sure he was 100% understood as words could easily get lost the other way.

Tadashi held his hands over Hiro’s, and began to communicate to Hiro in a system created in Japan. It followed the traditional system in Japanese braille of hiragana and katakana characters, while omitting the Chinese kanji characters. The Japanese language only has five vowels, allowing each of Hiro’s fingers to represent a vowel. His other hand served as a consonant hand with the five major consonants on his finger tips and the rest using other joints of his fingers. The system was much like playing a piano or typing on a keyboard.

“Tell me exactly what’s happening. You haven’t been yourself lately.”

It took a while for Hiro to switch to reading the tactile communication method; his Japanese was sufficient but not effortless. Gears switching over, Hiro finally responded unsure of what to divulge. There was a time when he told his big brother everything but now he felt guarded.

“I had a nightmare.” He admitted.

“What was the nightmare about?”

“I was alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tadashi… I stopped seeing in my dream… I couldn’t hear. It’s happening again… and I couldn’t…” _couldn’t feel you_ “No one else was there. It felt unfamiliar.”

“It’s ok Hiro. I’ll never leave you. You will never be alone.” 

_But what if…_ Hiro shuddered at the thought. He could still feel the heat of his dream. At first Tadashi had been with him in the darkness, they had been going somewhere hand in hand until something caused Tadashi to let go of his hand, and a huge wave of heat had knocked Hiro back, unfamiliar people had grabbed Hiro back and he had the dread that Tadashi wasn’t coming back. It was at this point that Hiro had woken up. 

“’Dashi, you can’t always be here with me. I need to learn how to do things myself. And what about you? Why haven’t you applied to SFIT yet? There’s no use of you waiting around at home for me to finish school all day. Stop wasting your talent.” Hiro’s unsure statement for just a moment before had turned adamant.

Hiro broke contact to reach for Tadashi’s lips for their more familiar communication method.

“Hiro, I don’t think I shou--” Tadashi was cut off mid-sentence, which was rare for his little brother to do.

“’Dashi… don’t let me hold you back.” Hiro said quietly, but stubbornly.

“I’ll think about it. Now let’s get you ready for school, you’re going to be late again.” The older brother wished he could do, or even say something more to his brother. Losing his senses in his dreams was clearly distressing for him. It was time for him to use his brain in something important. SFIT wasn’t a bad idea, and it had a medical technology department.

Hiro nodded and didn’t protest when Tadashi lifted him off the bed and carried him downstairs. He had largely been getting ready by himself but it was a slow process. Hiro hated himself for once again needing Tadashi, but today he wanted to be close to him. The shock of losing Tadashi in his dream… he could enjoy at least one more day of proximity, right?

Tadashi set him down in front of the washroom. The bathroom had been neatly organized so nothing was ever out of place. Hiro had been following the same wash routine for many years as Aunt Cass taught him where everything was and it was very important for items not to move around.

“I’ll be in the kitchen. Toast or cereal?”

“Toast.”

“On it.”

Hiro felt Tadashi leave, Hiro’s hand lingered a little longer in the air.

Alone.

He shook the feeling and entered the bathroom closing the door quietly behind him.

He removed his clothes, a simple long white shirt, sweatpants and briefs and placed them in the open wash basket. Tentatively he ran his hands over his own body. He had noticed some small changes in himself, but nothing overly drastic. His reach was still quite short and he felt overall a lot smaller than Tadashi. It was some minor things he had noticed, such as when his throat felt different at times when he was speaking, what felt like course hair growing in unfamiliar places which he had yanked out in distress when he had discovered them growing. He avoided touching his penis, worried that it would wake up and he wouldn’t be able to get it to return to normal.

Satisfied that nothing else was unusual today, he went to the shower and located the taps and turned them on, alternating between cold and hot to find the perfect temperature. He waved his other hand to locate the spray and test the waters. Stepping into the shower tub, with the water pounding down on his face he finally let himself go, his mind wandering back to the possibility of losing Tadashi. His heart pounded faster in panic and an involuntary sob left his body.  
“’Dashi?” He called out, the words leaving his lips but sounding silent on his ears. “Tadashi!” He tried again, this time forcing the word out stronger, feeling that irregular sensation in his throat as his voice cracked.

It didn’t take long. The familiar arms were wrapped around him again, drawing him out of the shower. Tadashi’s clothes had gotten wet.

“Are you ok?” Frantic fingers signed on his palm.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine... I just… would you be able to take a bath with me?”

Tadashi must have been taken aback because he took a while to respond. For a brief moment he thought he had scared Tadashi off as their connection was momentarily disconnected.

“I mean, it’s ok if you don’t I get tha--” This time it was Hiro’s turn to be cut off as Tadashi took Hiro’s palm again to spell out two letters: OK.

“Ok.” Hiro repeated back.

Tadashi must have already started filling up the bathtub in the moment he was gone. Hiro waited patiently, hugging his body and shivering slightly in the morning cold. It took a few minutes for the bathtub to fill up sufficiently. Tadashi stepped in first, guiding Hiro by holding both of his hands they sat down facing each other. It was a lot more cramped than the last time they had taken a bath together. 

Tadashi tugged lightly on Hiro’s hand urging him to move closer. Hiro obliged, tracing Tadashi’s inner left leg as a guide to turn himself around. Hiro lied back into Tadashi, his wide bare chest warm against Hiro’s back. His big brother wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, nestling his cheek into the unruly black hair.

After a few minutes Tadashi pushed Hiro slightly on the back, urging him to lean forward to wash Hiro’s back with the washcloth. This caused Hiro’s bottom to slide backwards a little into Tadashi’s crotch. Hiro noticed that even though the older Hamada had kept his briefs on, he could still feel a hardening through the smooth fabric. 

Sexual education had largely been left out of Hiro’s curriculum at school, as teachers were unsure on how to approach the subject with him. It was insufficient to leave him with the transcripts of such lessons without context, and it was inappropriate to teach someone who learned primarily through touch. Maintaining modesty was the closest issue which Hiro had been taught in, and he was largely taught at home about society’s rules. Most children passively learn from their environment which behaviors related to modesty are acceptable in public, and which behaviors are considered private by watching others and the way they are treated. Children who grow up deafblind do not indirectly experience the negative views of immodest behaviour.

Hiro was very innocent about his body. Luckily he learned fast and understood the rules put in place and stuck by them religiously. The final and most important rule he had been taught was if in doubt, ask Tadashi.

“’Dashi, what does it mean when a penis does this?”

Hiro had turned himself around onto his knees. One hand placed on Tadashi’s face to read, the other massaging Tadashi’s growing erection. Tadashi was trapped between his brother and the bathtub wall, already pressed as far back against it as he could.

Tadashi reached down, gently grasping Hiro’s wrist and moving his hand away.

“Don’t do that, Hiro.”

“Why not?”

Hiro felt the hot breath of a sigh before Tadashi continued.

“It’s not appropriate.”

“But doesn’t it mean you’re happy?”

“Not necessarily. Where did you learn that?” Tadashi hesitated, briefly, “No, don’t answer that right now.”

Hiro may have been innocent, but he was curious. He understood what was happening to his body was one of the immodest things that Aunt Cass and Tadashi had told him to do in private so he had only looked into his situation when he was sure he was alone. Searching the web wasn’t impossible, but the content was limited for his situation and braille display wasn’t efficient for a teenager trying to sneak information in between classes.

“Hiro, can you finish off in the bath by yourself? I’ll go down and tell Aunt Cass that you’re staying home today. There’s a lot I’ll have to teach you.”

Hiro nodded, smiling back as Tadashi left the bathtub. All thoughts of his nightmare had left. He was happy to be staying back from school to learn more about his body, as it was his primary tool for experiencing the world. His older brother was his best teacher, as he was patient and never belittled him when he struggled. The pacing in his real school was harder, in many aspects he was ahead of the grade but in others he was unable to comprehend some content due to teaching style. Most people were surprised he managed to keep up with the others in his age group so well. Tadashi knew Hiro had the capability to exceed his peers with extra attention which is why he was disappointed when Hiro decided to continue with normal school life.

Hiro sat in the bathtub and washed himself hurriedly, excited to find out what Tadashi would teach him about today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this. I hope you're not too disappointed about this being set before the first chapter. Please don't be afraid to comment, as they really do make me want to write more!


	3. Star-Crossed Voyagers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank-you for your support! Just wanted to mention that while a lot of the technique and devices in this fanfic are real, the tidbit on echolocation in this article is specific to a world with technology as high-tech as the movie. Unfortunately it's not as well developed in our world just yet, although there have been some levels of success using the concept.

Tadashi leaned back on the closed bathroom doe, exhaling a deep breath. This wasn’t meant to happen.

 _You’re sick Tadashi._ the words reverberated around his mind but he forced the feelings off, having to focus on how he would deliver education on such a sensitive topic appropriately.

Taking another deep breath he looked down, and was pleased to see his erection had subsided. It wasn’t a second too soon as Aunt Cass had made her way up the stairs to check on the boys. She was dressed in her simple work clothes, a black shirt and casual jeans with her short wavy hair let loose. She was carrying up the plate of toast and orange juice.

“Is everything alright in there? He’s going to be late for school again.” She questioned him, with an analyzing gaze. Her eyes lingered over his wet t-shirt, “Why are you wet? Are you okay?” She wasn’t used to seeing Tadashi looking so flustered; he had always been so mature that it concerned her whenever he was perturbed, as it usually meant something quite serious was troubling him.

Tadashi straightened up to answer her, realizing he must have looked peculiar leaning against the door like that, “Everything is fine, we were just having some water pressure trouble from the showerhead. It confused Hiro a bit, but I’ve run him a bath to help relax him. He’s been a bit… on edge lately.”

Aunt Cass continued to search his eyes, but after a moment relaxed, “You know you don’t have to do everything alone, right? I’m here to help and we have Dr. Kakasho’s number for advice.” He didn’t know why he didn’t tell her that Hiro was starting to need _that_ talk. It was the perfect opportunity to get advice. But he couldn’t imagine, no, he didn’t want anybody else going over those things with him. 

“I’ll be alright Aunt, but is it okay if he stays home with me today? He needs some extra help with some of his coursework because they haven’t converted the content over into braille correctly. It’s one of the rare times he’s actually asked for help so he must be quite behind.” Well, he wasn’t exactly lying. 

Aunt Cass had always tried to do the best for her nephews, but she had always struggled. She had not expected to be a parent, let alone the guardian of a handicapped child. Hiro had scared her, especially in the early days when they were unsure if he was going to pull through. At one point she thought they would live somewhat normally, but it became difficult when the side effects of the antidote finally took effect. Her long term partner at the time had left after a year of trying to adjust to the new family scenario so Aunt Cass had spent most of her time working at her Lucky Cat Café and other odd jobs due to the medical, therapeutical and technological costs. Regardless, she had always felt so blessed that Tadashi had stepped up and taken care of Hiro without any complaints.

“Tadashi, you know I trust you to do what’s best for Hiro. If you say he should stay home from school, he can stay home from school.” She passed him the plate of toast and the orange juice, “I’ll go down and let the school know he’s not coming in today.” In the latest year of school, Hiro had elected to take public transport to school, reminding them that he couldn’t always have someone there to hold his hand. Aunt Cass had allowed it, as unbeknown to Hiro, Tadashi had followed him every day to make sure he was okay. As an extra precaution, the school and Aunt Cass kept contact via SMS every day to ensure his safety. 

Tadashi waited for his Aunt to walk back down to the café before climbing back upstairs. She was humming happily to herself. _You know I trust you to do what’s best for Hiro,_ Aunt Cass had said, making him feel guilty. There was no way he could let his Aunt down.

Tadashi placed the plate and orange juice down on Hiro’s desk, and out of the corner of his eye saw something that could solve their intimacy issue. The device he needed for their lesson was stashed on a table in the corner. It was under a blanket as it hadn’t been used for a number of years. He carried the table out of the corner and moved it towards the centre of the room. Underneath the cloth was a now outdated communication device that they had used before Hiro had mastered the Tadoma Method with him. People often observed that it was strange that the Hamada brothers who were proficient in technology only to end up reverting to non-technological techniques with each other.

On the table was a large communication device consisting of two components which enabled Hiro to talk with sighted and hearing individuals. The first component is used by the sighted person and was attached to a screen and a keyboard. The second component was to be used by Hiro had a braille display and also a keyboard attached. It was similar to instant messaging. The technology was used by most deafblind people, but it was strange setting up the device again to communicate with Hiro. He plugged the power cord in, and was rewarded with the device starting up.

Satisfied with the set-up, Tadashi tore his clothes off and threw them into his wash basket to get changed out of his sodden pyjamas. Tadashi caught a glance of his reflection in the mirror, and couldn’t help but be proud of his physique. After graduating high school, Tadashi had been spending quite a lot of time on his body. In the start he had just wanted to stay strong for Hiro, as he was worried that his little brother would grow too big to handle. So far those concerns had been unwarranted, but Tadashi had grown to love working out and his new found muscles. 

He was far from bulky, with lean muscles which were often put to practical use. His shoulders were broad with strong arms, and his pectoral muscles were firm. His stomach was toned to show off the smooth outline of his six pack and complimented by the sharp V of his abdominal hip muscles leading down to his well-endowed member.

He was largely immune to the glances and shy giggles that groups of girls would titter when he glanced in their direction. He had never been very interested in a relationship, and the few who managed to hanker after Tadashi enough for him to agree on a date grew irate at the man gushing over how great Hiro was. But mostly he had been too heavily involved in researching ways to improve Hiro’s quality of life.

There had been advances in technology for the blind, by enhancing the effectiveness of echolocation, which was the way that some animals such as bats pinpoint the location and size of nearby objects. While humans have only the tiniest degree of natural echolocation, artificial echolocation had recently been developed which could guide the blind. This could only work on people with hearing, and there were huge limitations in restoring any form of reality back to Hiro which was the main reason he had not applied to SFIT yet. The university was the top of its kind and operated differently than most. To gain entrance, students have to propose a marketable and scientifically unique product and an accompanying prototype. The rejection rate was so high as the entrance proposal effectively acted as the student’s thesis for the entirety of the degree. The idea behind SFIT was to produce graduates with a completely marketable and functioning contribution to the scientific community. If Tadashi was going to work on something for the next five to ten years, it would have to be a project that would give his brother the best chance at a normal life.

Unsure footsteps and a quiet voice broke his reverie. 

“’Dashi?”

Embarrassed, Tadashi tore himself away from his reflection and looked over at Hiro who was holding the door frame for a sense of awareness and balance. He was looking over in Tadashi’s general direction, but unable to see his naked brother only a few feet away. 

Hiro had habitually dressed himself in his school uniform. Tadashi adored how it looked on him. His uniform consisted of tall grey socks, navy school shorts with a matching coloured tie which he had skilfully tied into a Windsor knot over his crisp white blouse. He looked different in his uniform without his sunglasses, cane and badge warning of his handicap. Tadashi couldn’t wait until he could develop something to make Hiro look like an ordinary boy like this every day.

“’Dashi?” He cried out again, his voice wavering and walking forward a few steps into the room. Tadashi quickly pulled himself into gear and put on the nearest clothing he could find which were a loose V-neck sweater and some track pants. He rushed over to Hiro in four long strides, and placed a hand on his shoulder to indicate that he was there.

Hiro smiled at the touch and rushed into Tadashi for a hug. Tadashi returned the embrace, and realised the top of Hiro’s hair was tickling his chin. Hiro really was growing older. After a while, Tadashi relinquished the embrace and steered Hiro by the hand to the nearby table with the braille device. Hiro sat down on the chair bewildered, and his eyebrows furrowed when he reached his hands out and touched the braille display.

Tadashi rolled his computer chair to the other side of the table. The space between them felt large and impersonal. It was for the best.

 _“Testing. Is this working?”_ Tadashi typed. 

“Yes. Why do we have to use this?” Asked Hiro, speaking back to Tadashi out loud.

_“It’s necessary Hiro. I’m going to teach you things that are related to modesty. Remember how I taught you that some things aren’t appropriate to do outside?”_

This time Hiro typed back instead of speaking. Hiro rarely spoke out loud when he was with people other than Tadashi, and even then he only spoke when they were touching as without physical contact he had no idea where anyone was standing in relation to him. Even though they were only a few feet away from each other, to Hiro they could have been in different countries.  
 _“I remember you telling me that I was safe to do private things in my own home.”_ Hiro rebutted.

Tadashi’s hand hesitated over the keyboard. There was no point continuing to argue with him, so he decided just to proceed with the lessons. He was largely unsure of where to start. In the guidelines he had been given on the subject from Hiro’s doctor, sexual health and education was vague.

He had a number of areas to choose from, as he knew Hiro was oblivious to most topics such as relationships, puberty, reproductive system, and sexuality. He decided to begin with the reproductive system, as at least that way he could shy away from stickier questions and focus more on the factual biology of the human body which Hiro already had knowledge of.

The lesson went well, with Hiro asking the occasional question every now and again. After half an hour, Hiro sat back away from the braille display.

“Tadashi… I’ve done a little bit of research into this sort of stuff already. It wasn’t clear on some points though.” His voice wavered a little as he spoke, as he was unsure of how to phrase his next question. Tadashi rolled his chair over next to Hiro and reached out to hold his hand, encouraging him to continue. “So you were just saying that females and males have different re..productive organs? So only men and women have relationships?” Hiro reached his other hand up to Tadashi’s face, expecting a response.

Tadashi was unsure of how to answer, as he had a feeling where Hiro was going with this after the bathtub incident. On the other hand, he couldn’t lie to Hiro.

“It’s the most common, but it doesn’t always work quite that way. Some women love other women, and some men love other men. Some like both and some don’t love anyone at all.”

“That’s what I thought.” Said Hiro matter-of-factly before declaring boldly, “I love you Tadashi!”

Tadashi’s heart skipped a beat and it brought a smile to his lips, but he knew that Hiro couldn’t possibly mean the words he said the way Tadashi wanted him to mean them.

“I love you too, Hiro… but there are different kinds of loves too. We’re brothers, so we love each other a different way than someone in a relationship.”

Tadashi realised too late that the hand that he used to hold Hiro’s was being drawn towards somewhere he wasn’t meant to touch.

“No, I mean I love you both ways. Look.” Hiro had refuted, moving Tadashi’s hand down to the hardening in his pants. For a brief moment too long, Tadashi’s hand lingered, having triggered an urge, but he abruptly took it away, alarmed by the recent development.

“You feel the same way, don’t you?” Hiro said quietly. Tadashi attempted to reply but the connection was broken as Hiro stood up, only just a little bit taller than the still sitting Tadashi. Hiro’s hands reached out, searching to touch Tadashi’s body. Tadashi quickly stood up and grasped each of Hiro’s hands to stop him. 

“Please, ‘Dashi… you know I won’t find anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else. You don’t understand… I don’t want to be alone. You’re the only person in my world.” Hiro pleaded, and Tadashi almost broke, the urge to hug him, kiss him and make Hiro enjoy feelings he had never experienced before were incredibly powerful.

He succumbed to his first urge, and drew Hiro into an embrace. “I won’t let you be alone Hiro.” He said, speaking to himself. He looked down and Hiro was looking up at him, his large beautiful eyes closed as usual. His mouth looked soft and inviting and they were getting closer. Tadashi lowered his face, kissing the lips with a soft peck before drawing back and looking at Hiro’s reaction. He looked confused, but happy.  
“’Dashi, teach me more.”


	4. It was only a kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait! It has been a hectic couple of months but I've finally got some free time! This fanfic isn't going to go away any time soon as I have a clear picture planned for it. As always, I look forward to kudos and comments!

Tadashi brushed his lips tenderly against Hiro. Hiro felt the contact linger longer than usual, and there seemed to be an unfamiliar intent behind the action. One hand supported the back of his head, and the other held him closely in the small of his back. When the contact broke, Hiro felt an immediate sense of longing, although he wasn’t sure exactly what he hungered for. Yearning for the contact that was lost, he stood on his tiptoes, leaning forward against Tadashi for balance, and reached his arms around Tadashi’s neck to urge his brother closer. There was another brief moment of hesitation as Tadashi’s hot breath exhaled provocatively against his lips, sending a shiver down Hiro’s spine. Overcoming the inner turmoil, the older Hamada resumed the kiss with a renewed intensity. The warm and wet sensation of Tadashi’s tongue surprised Hiro, as it probed, silently asking permission for Hiro to part his lips. Permission was granted, the new sensation perplexing Hiro, as he had never experienced, or even witnessed a passionate kiss. His heart beat rapidly due to the cocktail of emotions, but he soon found himself enjoying the feeling and clumsily kissed back in earnest to reciprocate the approach.

In an effort to experience more new sensations, Hiro’s hands began to wander, seeking more contact with Tadashi. His fingers found their way under Tadashi’s loose t-shirt where he began to trace the defined outline of his abdominal muscles with his fingertips, with as much care as if he were reading braille. Tadashi’s body felt remarkably different from his own, reminding him of safety and power. Their kiss finally broke apart, causing Hiro to unashamedly audibly sigh in disappointment. Their bodies broke contact as Tadashi removed his sweater before beginning to unbutton Hiro’s blouse. Under normal circumstances Hiro would usually be indignant, insisting on undressing himself, but in this instance he stood meekly allowing the nimble fingers to efficiently strip him. 

With both their torsos exposed, they pulled each other into a tight embrace. The warmth emanating off of Tadashi did little to calm Hiro’s nerves as he trembled from exhilaration. At first, Hiro thought Tadashi was moving his hands to his lips to speak to him, but instead he was directed to the back of Tadashi’s neck. Understanding, Hiro grasped his hands together behind Tadashi’s nape and in one swift movement he was swept off of his feet. He instinctively tightened his grip, but there was no need as the strong arms held him securely. Movement was felt as the older boy began walking, but Hiro paid no mind to it as Tadashi resumed locking lips. The kissing continued as Hiro was gently lowered on his back, placed carefully back into his bed with Tadashi positioned over him. It was crazy to think that only an hour or so ago he had woken up scared about losing his Tadashi. Now, they were closer than ever, and feelings had been awoken in Hiro which were new and exciting. 

After the heated make out session, Tadashi rested beside him, holding Hiro against his chest and stroking his fingers through Hiro’s hair idly. Craving for more attention, in a moment of bravery Hiro rolled himself over on top of Tadashi, reversing their earlier position. His positioning was a little awkward, forcing Tadashi to grip his hips and move him into a more natural position, straddling Tadashi’s hips. Leaning forward, body against body, he aimed to resume the kiss. He felt the frame squirm beneath him as Hiro missed, instead his lips planted just above Tadashi’s collar bone. Taking this as encouragement, Hiro began exploring Tadashi’s neck with his mouth, using an enthusiastic but unskilled combination of kissing, licking and sucking. The body beneath him continued to writhe in pleasure, the hot breath occasionally close enough to feel. After a particularly strong movement of Tadashi’s hips, Hiro decided to begin exploring lower, following a sightless trail down his body. The hand not supporting him travelled downwards, and began toying with the waistband of the older boy’s pants in an attempt to seek more contact. It was an unusual feeling to have Tadashi squirm beneath him, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit proud to finally give something back to his older brother. He was surprised when Tadashi gripped his wandering hand, holding it gently but firmly away from his trousers. Tadashi purposefully moved the hand away, bringing them to his lips to communicate the first words said since the situation had escalated.

“Don’t be so impatient, Hiro.” Tadashi said slowly, making sure he understood every word. He continued, seeing, the unabashed disappointment in Hiro’s face as he thought he was finally doing something good for his brother, “It’s not you, okay? I’m… quite inexperienced. I want to enjoy this sort of thing slowly.” Hiro smiled and leaned forward to kiss Tadashi in response, not quite trusting his voice to convey his emotions, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment with his uneven cadence. He was incredibly happy that Tadashi had admitted to being inexperienced. It was unusual for his big brother, who had always been much more mature and seemed to be all-knowing to be trying something new that they could learn together. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, as Hiro knew that Tadashi spent nearly all of his free time with him. There was still a part of him that couldn’t shake the feeling that Tadashi was holding back due to other reasons, but as he was largely unaware of the social and legal stigma that should be keeping them apart, he remained oblivious to Tadashi’s complex emotions.

Now placated enough to not try anything further with Tadashi for the moment, Hiro lied down next to his brother, head resting against his shoulder. After a moment, Tadashi reached for his spare hand once again to communicate, lightly brushing his fingers with his lips before speaking. “Hiro, I need you to speak to me. I love your voice, and you were making such cute noises just before.” Hiro blushed, having not realised he had been emitting sounds earlier. Ever since he had been forced to do a speech in front of his classmates four years ago, he had been ashamed of his voice. He had not realised he sounded any different from other people until he received harsh feedback regarding his tones and pronunciation from a non-understanding teacher, shattering his confidence. Tadashi had done his best to convince Hiro to speak his mind more, but a lot of damage had been done that day. “Come on Hiro, it’s me. It’s important that you tell me how you’re feeling right now. How do you feel about all of what we are doing? Are you sure this is what you want?”

Hiro nodded, and after a pause replied, “I love you ‘Dashi… and I like this. I feel strange, but it’s in a good way. I want you to teach me more.” He felt Tadashi’s lips curve into a smile as he spoke, making him feel silly for not wanting to speak previously. Hiro knew it was problematic that his confidence in himself waned, even with Tadashi on occasion. He was pleasantly surprised when Tadashi’s lips once again found his own, as if thanking him for sharing his thoughts. After the kiss, Hiro placed his fingers back into position to listen.

“I love you too, Hiro.” He wished so hard that he could truly hear those words, “But if we want to keep doing these sorts of things together… I need you to know that we can get into a lot of trouble.” 

Hiro’s eyebrows furrowed, perplexed, but he nodded for Tadashi to continue. “Promise me that you won’t tell anyone about what we are doing. Not even Aunt Cass.” 

Hiro assured him he wouldn’t, pointing out that he doesn’t really talk to anyone else anyway. “Are we doing something bad?” Hiro asked, curious for the secrecy. It was unusual for Tadashi to tell him to be quiet about something, when he was usually urging him to become more outgoing.

“It’s complicated.” Tadashi replied slowly, “There are a number of reasons why people wouldn’t want us to be together like this.”

“Because we’re both boys?”

“Yes, that’s one of the reasons but probably not the main one.”

“Is it because of my condition?”

“No… well… partly.” He admitted, “Some people might think I’m taking advantage of you… and honestly, I can’t really deny those claims.”

“I don’t understand.” The confusion showed in his quavering voice.

“Society has some rules, and I’ve caused us to break them.”

“What are the rules?”

“I’m sorry, I should have explained first. It’s not acceptable for relatives, especially siblings to be in a relationship together. The word for it is incest.” He said the last word slowly, knowing it would be new to him. “Are you following?”

Hiro nodded, digesting the new information, “I think I understand. But what do you mean by taking advantage of me? You’re not!”

“You’re still very young, Hiro. It’s improper for an adult to coerce a child… and because you’re…” Tadashi trailed off; he didn’t like mentioning Hiro’s condition.

The younger brother caught on, understanding what was left unsaid. “Because I’m deafblind, people will think you’re forcing me to do things?”

“Yes. I’m sorry to have put you in this situation Hiro. I should have stopped myself.”

“I love you ‘dashi. I don’t care what the world thinks. I only care what you think!” He pecked his brother, as if to seal the deal. 

Tadashi pulled away before the kiss could be deepened, “You’re very precious to me Hiro. Promise me that we only do this in private, okay? And we can’t do anything more than what we have done today, at least for a while. You’re still too young, even though you might feel otherwise.”

“Don’t treat me like a kid. You know I’m smarter than that!” He replied indignantly.

“Please be patient Hiro.”

What Hiro didn’t discern was that it had taken every ounce of resistance in Tadashi’s body to restrain from progressing further with Hiro, especially with the boy being so unexpectedly willing and attempting to take charge. Aside from the reasons he had given Hiro, Tadashi had his own personal motivation to refrain from doing anything more physical. Hiro had inspired him to apply for SFIT, and a part of him did not want to pursue anything further with Hiro until he restored his vision. Hiro was intelligent, but he did not have sufficient information about the world to make an educated decision regarding their relationship.

“Okay… we’ll only kiss, and in private.” Hiro resigned, “But you have to promise me that you will never leave me. You’re mine, right?” 

“I promise!” Tadashi replied immediately, glad that Hiro finally understood. 

A sly smile reached Hiro’s lips, “But if I change my mind and want to try other things with you, you _have_ to do them. You wouldn’t want me to slip anything to Aunt Cass.”

Tadashi doubted that Hiro even knew the word blackmail, but he sure had learnt the concept of it.


	5. Team Origin Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone - once again sorry for the delay. I've actually written a few chapters ahead but they need a lot of reviewing. I'm trying my best to make the science behind this story somewhat plausible which is causing a lot of delays, unfortunately!

Fred had been surprised when Professor Callaghan has asked him to join the interview panel for the new semester’s Honor applicants as his father was unable to make it. The students knew him merely as the mascot, while the staff knew Fred as the son of the institute’s proprietor. No one ever paid him much mind, letting him do his own thing as long as he wasn’t compromising safety, which was quite often.

The success rate of students making it to the interview stage was low, and he only had to sit through four presentations before Professor Callaghan’s intentions became clear. After each presentation there was a murmuring among the panelists as they attempted to validate their opinions with one another. 

“The last presentation is from Tadashi Hamada, isn't that Hayato’s son?” The voice belonged to a stern looking lady with short, slicked black hair, adorned in a grey power suit. Severe eyes were narrowed as she peered through her thick glasses, analysing the summary of Tadashi’s project. 

Fred sat up from his desk as he heard the panellists discuss the next candidate, the familiar name of Hayato Hamada triggering a memory and catching his attention. Fred pulled out his own copy of the summary, which was the only piece of paper he hadn't yet turned into a paper plane. There was an incredible amount of jargon used, but the general gist involved restoring vision to the blind with a stretch goal of also restoring hearing. It was kind of cool, but seemed like more of a medical thesis than something that would belong at SFIT.

“Yes, I believe he is, Margaret. It seems that talent has run through the family. The technology he is proposing is innovative and pushes the boundaries of multiple industries.” Professor Callaghan responded to her coolly.  
“He also seems to have inherited his father’s recklessness.” She said scornfully. “I won’t pretend that I understand your motivations Callaghan, but I suppose that’s why you brought Mr. Lee along today?”  
“It’s just Fred.” He chimed in from the end of the table. “Mr. Lee is what people call my old man.” 

_“Tadashi Hamada.”_ Margaret, or Ms Trousselot, ignored Fred, choosing to instead call in the next applicant through the PA.

The man who came in was noticeably different than the other hopeful applicants who had unashamedly fit into the nerd stereotype in the looks department. Tadashi was appropriately dressed in a fitted dark grey suit, and he seemed to spend more time working out than most robotics students. If it weren’t for the dark circles underneath his eyes that were a feature characteristically shared between students with a deadline, Fred would have guessed that Tadashi had as much business being at SFIT than he did.

Compared to the former applicants who had large and impressive prototypes, Tadashi’s display was simple, requiring only the quick setup of his hologram projector for his presentation.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, I am here to--“ Tadashi was cut off, as Ms Trousselot had raised her hand for silence.

“Mr Hamada, we have run overtime this afternoon. As we have all read your brief, I would like to proceed straight into some questions. Are you an ophthalmologist?”

“No, I’m--”

“A chemist?”

“No, I--”

“Neurologist?”

“I have some bac--”

She raised her hand for silence again. Fred wondered how Tadashi kept his composure, the applicant was obviously flustered but if Fred was in that position he would have snapped in some way by now.  
“Mr Hamada, what you’re trying to achieve, while admiral, will require many years of clinical research and knowledge of various fields which you can’t have possibly mastered by yourself. While we have accepted students with medical inventions in the past, we have never approved anything quite so specific to an undergraduate. I suggest perhaps approaching and selling your preliminary research to a company with the right resources to develop this further. Thank-you for your ti--” It was Ms Trousselot’s turn to be cut off.

“I would like to ask a few questions before you dismiss this project.” Callaghan’s voice chimed in steadily, “how is your project any different than the bionic retinas currently on the market or in development, Tadashi?”  
Tadashi answered promptly, relieved to finally have a chance to showcase his work.

“The end product will be significantly superior to current bionic retinas. Current technology requires a microchip to be implanted behind the retina. My version will be a non-intrusive and non-surgical procedure and should produce far greater and adjustable clarity.”

There was some murmuring following this. A non-surgical method of restoring vision eliminated a lot of earlier reservations regarding the liability surrounding the project.

A tiny elderly man sitting next to Fred in a tweed suit piped up. Fred’s heart jumped in reaction, as he hadn’t even noticed the old codger until that moment. “These glasses I’m wearing,” He was wearing a peculiar pair of dark sunglasses, “They allow me to see without the use of electrodes and surgery by mapping together live camera images and sounds which are then decoded into meaningful vision. How is this different than how your invention works?”

Tadashi answered without skipping a beat. “My invention will provide visual input with a camera directly to the brain via electrodes in contact with the visual cortex using a computer to process the sensory streams. The processor will monitor the electric pulses by which the eye’s cells transmit information. Bionic retinas currently on the market create an overstimulation of cells which cause a distortion in the processed images and cannot convey a clear image. I also plan on forgoing the use of glasses by developing the nanotechnology into contact lenses.” Tadashi was providing his pre-prepared holographic visuals along with his explanation.

“And you plan on doing this non-surgically with a better output than what is already available? I don’t see how you can possibly achieve this.” Ms. Trousselot attempted to regain the discussion, perturbed to have lost control.

“Great question!” Tadashi brought up a structural formula showing an arrangement of atoms in the molecule of a compound. “Partially, it will be done chemically.”  
Professor Tate, the head of the chemistry department was taken aback by the molecular structure.

“Isn’t that lysergic acid diethylamide?” He asked, perplexed.

“Yes it is.” Tadashi responded confidentially. “As Ms Trousselot earlier pointed out, I am not a chemist so I will need some tinkering to my formula to keep only the desired effects.”

“You plan on using a hallucinogenic drug to impel vision. Mr Tate, is that possible?” Callaghan asked, directing his question towards the chemist.

“I’m honestly not sure.” Mr Tate said, frowning.

“They can!” Fred said in an outburst. All eyes looked at him in astonishment as most at forgotten he was there, let alone offer a contribution. “A friend of a friend of mine is totally blind and tried acid once. He said it evoked illusions like he could see again but he was totally tripping.”

"I see." Said Ms. Trousselot sternly, "If that's the case I'd imagine this would only work on people who are not blind from birth? Have you taken into account cross-modal plasticity?"  
Tadashi nodded, but Fred interrupted before the student could explain. "What's a cross model plasticity?" He was genuinely curious. He couldn't quite put his finger on why he knew the name Tadashi Hamada, but it was very familiar to him and was beginning to annoy him.

Tadashi attempted to explain it simply to Fred. "It's when part of your brain isn't being used so it gets taken over by something else. Imagine it like a house you aren't using, so you let a friend stay there. The friend gets comfortable, rearranges the furniture, and settles in. If you come back, they may not want to leave. This could be why older people who are partially deaf find hearing aids confusing or unhelpful."

"So overall, your product isn't very marketable and can only be used in a small number of cases?" Margaret pushed at him. "If we were to dig deeper into this, I'd imagine only a small percentage of the blind community would benefit from this."

A large part of receiving the honors funding at SFIT involved how much profit the product could potentially yield. The advantage behind being an honors student was of course having a larger fund for research and having your own work room. While Tadashi could attempt his project without the extra funding, it would take far longer and the very real threat of cross-modal plasticity was looming, as the longer he waited the less effective the technology would be on Hiro.

"I'll fund it." Fred chimed in. Money wasn't an issue for him.

"He can have a spot in my team." Callaghan followed up quickly.

The other professors murmured. "Callaghan, you are head of robotics. I fail to see how supporting this venture will be beneficial for you."

"Ms Trousselot, with all due respect you'd be a fool to ignore the potential benefits that developing this science has." Callaghan responded coolly. 

Tadashi watched the exchange eagerly, afraid to say something that might jeopardise his chances.

"Very well. Congratulations Mr Hamada, you are a successful candidate. Never have I seen someone being accepted without so much as a prototype. Don't make me regret this."

"I won't Ms. Trousselot. Thank-you everyone!" Tadashi bowed, grinning widely unable to comprehend just how lucky he was. He finally had a real chance of helping Hiro.  
"Class begins in 3 weeks. We will mail you out your information packet. You are dismissed."

\---

"Hey, wait up!" Tadashi turned around, the voice of the strange Professor who approved funding to his project called out behind him as he was half way down the hall.

"I'm Fred," Said Fred, catching up and offering a handshake which Tadashi gratefully shook.

"Pleasure to meet you Fred. I'm Tadashi. Thank-you for... well, everything really! You have no idea how much this means to me."

"No worries man. Hey do you have time? I can show you to your new home. The rest of Callaghan's spots are already filled up so you can meet the rest of the gang."

"Yes, of course. I'd love to!" Fred sure was an unusual guy, and not someone he expected to be on the entrance board.

Tadashi followed Fred through the corridors to the robotics labs. He explained some of the other divisions along the way, but mostly talked about the people he was about to meet. They all had odd nicknames, and Tadashi wondered what nickname Fred would come up for him.

"So like, what's up with your project man? Is it a secret plot so you can get X-Ray vision or something because you can totally tell me?"

"Umm... no. I just want to help people."

To his amusement, Fred appeared a little sad about that and asked if it would have any other super-sensory effects. Tadashi explained that while it was possible with some tweaking, it wasn't really what he was aiming for.  
"OK I get that you're a saint but seriously, what's your motive? Most people come in here because they want to make something cool."

Tadashi sighed, he figured there was no harm in telling Fred as he would soon find out anyway if research went well. He explained to Fred about his brother, and the accident which happened when they were young. Tadashi's eyes lit up when he spoke about how proud he was of Hiro and talked about his academic achievements. Fred was very quiet listening to all of this, as most people were when Tadashi told people about Hiro as they were never quite sure how to respond.

"We're here." Fred said finally, as they reached a set of very normal looking green doors. He stopped Tadashi from entering, "Hold up, can you do me a favour and not mention anything about me hooking you up? Everyone just kind of knows me as the school mascot so if you can keep everything on the downlow that would be sweeet." Tadashi nodded in amusement, and returned Fred's pinky swear.

"Whoa." Was all Tadashi could say as he entered and watched everyone tinkering and testing their inventions. The tech in front of him was all very experimental, and he had seen nothing like it on the market. He could see why Fred was so intrigued by his choice of project, as it seemed that all the other students had large and flashy projects compared to his proposed nanotechnology. Hiro would love to see this, and he smiled knowing that soon he could make that a reality.

"Heads up!" A female voice yelled, and Tadashi ducked narrowly avoiding a flying disc with electro mag suspension near his head which landed in the trash. "Who are you?" Asked a short girl in leather with a purple streak through her hair.

Fred introduced him proudly, "Gogo, meet Tadashi Hamada! He's Callaghan's new pro DJ, and that over there is Wasabi." Fred said, indicating to a burly man in the corner working on laser induced plasma.

"I think you mean prodigy." The student with smooth dreadlocks in a green sweater chimed in, wandering over after hearing his nickname. "So you're the guy that beat us out of our honors applications? What are you developing?"  
"It's complicated, but something similar to bionic eyes."

"It's complicated is it?" Gogo said condescendingly, popping gum and raising an eyebrow after the statement, "Try me." Tadashi blushed, realising that if anyone was going to understand his project it would be the people standing inside this room.

He gave Gogo and Wasabi a rundown, and by the end of it they both seemed confused only managing to follow onto partial components. Wasabi was a major in applied physics and understood the project as a basic concept and it sounded fundamentally plausible but was lost in the specifics, and Gogo specialised in mechanical engineering so anything beyond the computing and physical units she was lost on.

Fred had wondered off, not understanding any of it. He brought over Honey Lemon, who listened into the end of the brief and was particularly excited over the chemical aspects of Tadashi's project. Fred had already filled her in on Tadashi's brother and she was moved by what Tadashi was trying to achieve.

"Fred said you needed a chemist?" The tall, blonde girl chimed in excitedly, clapping her hands together in glee when Tadashi was finished his explanation.

"I'm Honey Lemon! Pleased to meet you!" She said, offering Tadashi a hug instead of a traditional handshake. Tadashi hugged her, albeit a little uncomfortably. Fred had mentioned Honey Lemon earlier in the corridor, he said that she could do anything with chemicals which meant she could be one of his greatest allies.

"Hi Honey Lemon, I'm Tadashi," He said drawing back. "Yes, I absolutely need help from someone with a chemistry background if you have time to go over a few things with me. Actually, I think you can all help." Tadashi said, looking around at everyone realising that they all had different majors with more specific experience than he had.

"And we should help you why?" Gogo asked, already walking back to her own station.

Honey Lemon ran up to Gogo and held her by the shoulders. "We just have to help him Gogo! Tadashi's doing it for his little brother!"

"His brother?" Wasabi queried, with Fred interrupting Honey Lemon to answer.

"His little brother, he's blind AND deaf. Tadashi's trying to fix him!"

For the second time today, Tadashi found he was luckier with people talking for him. While he cringed at Fred saying he was trying to 'fix' his brother like he was broken, Tadashi knew that Fred meant good by it, even if his expression was off. Gogo didn't seem moved at all, as she already had her souldering mask on.

"Alright, I'll help out. But it'll have to be after next week's exams." Wasabi said, putting a hand on Tadashi's shoulder in support, "And don't worry about Gogo, she'll warm up to you."

Tadashi thanked everyone and smiled. The day couldn't have gone any better.


	6. Pubescent Mood Swings

Hiro was getting out of control.

It had been a tough week. Every moment they were alone together, and even when they weren't alone, Hiro had been all over him. It only got worse when Tadashi told Hiro he got into SFIT, afraid that he'd have even less time with Tadashi. At first he didn't mind, but his behaviours were very hard to manage in front of their Aunt.

For someone without vision or hearing, it is impossible to know when you are on your own. If no one is touching you, you could be standing alone in your room, or in the middle of a crowded classroom without knowing any difference. Hiro was usually very good at excusing himself to take care of whatever business he had to discreetly, but lately he was a lot less careful with his outward affection toward his older brother.

For example, Aunt Cass didn't say anything when Hiro, instead of taking his usual seat wandered over and sat on Tadashi's lap one dinner, or even the extra snuggling on the couch as Tadashi and Aunt Cass watched television together afterwards. Hiro had also began to start mischievous whispered conversations to Tadashi in Japanese knowing that Aunt Cass was from their mother's side of the family and never had much of a grip on the city's older language.

Tadashi was just glad that he was the one in charge of their laundry as there were some questionable stains on his sheets that didn't belong to him.

Hiro didn't use his own bed anymore. After the first week of creeping into Tadashi's bed in the middle of the night, he now boldly ignored his own. On the first night where Hiro wandered over, Tadashi woke up to a wonderful sensation in the morning. His brothers lips were wrapped around the tip of his cock, and his hand stroked his shaft. For a moment Tadashi thought he was dreaming, and enjoyed the sight and feeling of Hiro pleasuring him. He had soon come to the realisation that it was all very real and had to pull away, gently scolding Hiro for betraying the nothing below the belt rule.

As the attic didn't have it's own door, Tadashi was constantly anxious that Aunt Cass would come in and see them doing something inappropriate. But despite his nerves, he didn't have the heart to kick Hiro out and go back to their usual arrangement, and he really did enjoy sleeping next to his little brother after a long night of research. It was endearing how Hiro sat patiently in his lap, legs and arms wrapped around his older brother and answering any questions Tadashi had which could help him with his project. Occasionally Hiro would get bored, kissing Tadashi's exposed neck or sneaking a hand underneath his clothes leading to a playful study break.  
\----  
"I got called into the school today." Aunt Cass said nonchalantly as they sat down for dinner one night. Hiro hardly mentioned anything about school to Tadashi anymore, so he had stopped asking. He knew it was an isolating experience for Hiro, who always seemed to want to hear mor about the world from Tadashi. "They said that Hiro is falling behind in his classes. They recommended that he has some one on one coaching for a while."

This was surprising. He had never known Hiro to ever fall behind or fail a class. If it weren't for his condition he was 1000% sure that his brother would be far ahead of his peers.

"What has he been failing in? English?" Tadashi queried. Maybe the context was too hard to grasp for someone with none and it had always been his weakest subject.

"I'm not sure, but they gave me his recent test papers to look over." She said, pushing a small pile of pages across the table.

Tadashi reached over and started to flick through some of the papers. His brows furrowed as he looked through them.

He was surprised to see Hiro's maths exam. For a lot of the earlier questions the working out was right but the results were wrong. Towards the end of the test the answers were blank as if he had given up.

The other exams were betrayed in a similar fashion. His English and Japanese were mostly correct with throwaway answers, but once again were blank toward the end as it started asking for more complicated vocabulary and analysis.

He looked over the top of the paper of the Geography quiz where Vienna was marked as the capital of Australia instead of Austria. Meanwhile Hiro was focused on his plate, taking small careful bites out of the rissoto. He always slowly savoured his food, as he had a very strong sense of taste. Aunt Cass always taste tested her new cafe recipes on Hiro to get his approval. The older Hamada leaned over and placed a hand on Hiro's shoulder. Hiro smiled and gently put the spoon down, reaching his right hand across the small table toward Tadashi.

Not wanting to speak his concerns out loud in front of Aunt Cass he intercepted Hiro's hand which was aiming for the Tadoma method. Hiro understood and placed his other hand out for Tadashi holding them over the table. 

"Are you intentionally failing at school?" Tadashi asked, using finger-braille.

Hiro shook his head, and responded out loud in Japanese. 

"It wasn't intentional at first but the school hasn't updated the online content this semester so I have been unable to read ahead." Hiro replied slowly, trying to find the right words.

"Why didn't you say something earlier? I could have helped you."

"You've been busy with your project." Hiro's tone became a bit more casual as he became more comfortable easing into the conversation, not at all concerned with his slipping grades, "And in the whole scheme of things I don't think my schoolwork really matters."

"It does matter Hiro. I know you can easily pass these tests, you were only blank on some of these questions so why did you throw the rest? I know you can do a lot better." Tadashi felt guilty, he should have realised that Hiro wasn't studying as much as he used to but he usually used his time at school for that, while at home they used to work on puzzles and harder problems together.

"Big brother, I have my reasons." Hiro said with a smile, breaking their hand contact and picking up his fork once again. Aunt Cass was watching their exchange curiously.

"Aunt Cass," Hiro said, switching back to English after finishing a bite. This took both Aunt Cass and Tadashi by surprise as Hiro rarely spoke to his Aunt, "Can I stay home until Tadashi starts at college? It's been harder at school since he graduated and I don't want to fall any more behind."

Heat flushed to Tadashi's cheeks as his mind went to impure thoughts again. He seriously doubted it was study Hiro had in mind. It was hard to imagine that not long ago he thought his feelings would forever be unreciprocated, but now Hiro was going to such lengths to be with him.

Aunt Cass was looking at Tadashi, a little startled. She knew Tadashi was busy during Hiro's school day working hard on his SFIT project, but now there were only two weeks before Tadashi started college and it would be the last chance for free tutoring. She couldn't really afford to pay for the specialised tutoring that Hiro would require if he fell further behind, and Hiro never responded as well to outsiders. They had tried to take Hiro to a specialised school once, but he had insisted on going to the same school Tadashi was in where he did surprisingly well until now. 

"It's up to you Tadashi, I know you're busy with SFIT but if you have the capacity to spend some time with him I'll let the school know he's not coming in for a couple of weeks."

"Yeah, it's fine Aunt Cass." Tadashi resigned. If he was going to do this, it would be with no distractions and he was going to teach Hiro real schoolwork. Hiro may have set this up so he could have more time playing with Tadashi, but he was going to have to learn that it wouldn't always go his way. "It'll actually be useful to have him around for some quick tests for my project too."

Tadashi leant over to Hiro and gave him a brief co-sign gesture of 'yes' to let him know he had been successful. Hiro thanked Aunt Cass and continued eating, smiling smugly at his plate and looking rather pleased with himself.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, before Aunt Cass once again interjected.

"We don't talk much anymore, what's going on with you? I mean, I already have one nephew I can't speak to, I don't need two!"

Tadashi loved Aunt Cass but he hated comments like that. He was sure Hiro would warm up to her if she had just tried to learn how to communicate to him better instead of using Tadashi as a middle man to speak to him. 

"Nothing's really exciting has been happening, just researching really." He dismissed, taking another bite of the risotto.

"You know, I've noticed you two have been talking a lot with that hand thing you do lately." Aunt Cass noted, drumming her fingers in midair as if she were playing an invisible piano as a poor impression of finger-braille.

"It helps with his Japanese! And mine too, really." Tadashi responded needlessly defensive, almost too quickly. Had she noticed that they had been talking in private around her?! No, it was just a normal question. _Calm down Tadashi._

Aunt Cass' eyes narrowed, eyeing off her nephew, "So there's nothing you want to tell me?" She asked slowly.

Tadashi shook his head, suddenly feeling very nervous. He glanced over at Hiro, and was for a split second jealous of how oblivious he was to the situation.

"You know, I'm not an idiot Tadashi Hamada. I might not be as smart as you but I've noticed the way you've been acting recently. You did not get those love marks on your neck by yourself." She said, shaking her fork at him.

His hand instinctively clasped his neck at the mention of his hickeys that Hiro had left the other day when Tadashi wasn't paying him enough attention. His eyes darted to Hiro who was contently chasing a piece of meat with his cutlery, blissfully unaware of the scene around him. Tadashi's other fist was gripped tightly around his spoon. His face was bright red and his attempt at a reply was very flustered. 

"Uhhm..." He mumbled, a million excuses going around his head. At least she didn't seem angry, but surely she would be if she thought something was going on?

"So when were you going to tell me? Where did you meet her?"

"What? Her?" Tadashi blurted out. He was confused but happy to be presented an exit opportunity.

"Or him! Is it a him?!" Aunt Cass asked excitingly, as she leaned forward to scoop some more food from the Lazy Susan. "That would make a lot more sense actually. I mean, you never said anything but after all these years without a girlfriend I was starting to think that might be the case... which I'm definitely 100% okay with!"

Tadashi sat there a little stunned as she continued to rattle on, her face half stuffed with food. His heart began returning back to a normal pace. One hand hand, he definitely was not ready to have the discussion with Aunt Cass about his illicit relationship with his little brother but this was not the turn of events he had expected.

"Oh my god, did you think I wasn't okay with you dating a guy? Tadashi you should know better! It's San Fransokyo for crying out loud. Why do you think I'm still single? It's hard to find a decent straight man around here. So what's his name?" Aunt Cass seemed to finally have finished her tirade of questions, and was expecting a response back from Tadashi.

"Oh... his name. Um."

Maybe this wasn't a good exit strategy. He said the first name that came to mind which wasn't Hiro.

"Fred."

"His name is... Fred?" Cass suppressed a laugh at the basic name but perked back up quickly. "When am I going to meet him? You should invite him to the cafe."

On second thought, maybe Fred was a very bad choice. A very very bad choice. Although he was almost 99% sure that Fred would pose as his boyfriend with little to no explanation as long as there was free food involved, Tadashi didn't have much faith in his acting.

"Oh, no, I'm not dating Fred. Fred just introduced me to..." Wasabi was out, he wouldn't do it and he couldn't ask Honey Lemon, Wasabi had already took him aside and told him she was off limits. So that meant he was left with...

"Gogo. He introduced me to Gogo. She's reaaaally busy with SFIT though so you probably won't be able to meet her for a while." Gogo. _Gogo_. Was it too late to say Fred again? She would never agree to be his fake girlfriend.

"She?" Aunt Cass almost sounded a bit disappointed, after she was so sure about his coming out. "So you just met her at SFIT? You seem very close for someone you've only met five days ago."

There was a clang of cutlery being put down and a plate being pushed forward. Hiro finished his meal with great timing.

"Alright, I'll help Hiro get to bed. See you tomorrow Aunt Cass! Thanks for dinner."

"Don't think this is over, young man! Invite her over for dinner tomorrow! I'll make chilli dogs!" Aunt Cass called out after him, as Tadashi helped Hiro up the stairs in a lot more haste than he usually would.

Tadashi felt Aunt Cass' eyes follow them up. Why did he still have a feeling that she wasn't completely sold on his new relationship?

\-----

"What was that all about?" Hiro asked, as he was placed on Tadashi's bed. Usually he was helped up towards the stairs after dinner, but this time he had been rushed and carried up. He didn't mind, but was curious as to the change in the routine.

Hiro felt the bed sink as Tadashi lay in bed beside him. Hiro felt around and discovered that Tadashi was lying chest down in bed with one of the pillows over his head. He was acting a lot more erratic than usual which scared him a little.

"Dashi, are you okay?" He asked, lying himself down beside Tadashi and spooning his side. After a moment Tadashi stirred and rolled himself over onto his back. Hiro sighed in relief and moved his hand toward Tadashi's mouth, hoping that he'd respond back to him. Had he gotten Tadashi in trouble? Maybe Aunt Cass was mad at Tadashi because of his bad grades.

"I'm fine Hiro. Everything is okay." Hiro felt the hot breath. The message was always a bit harder to read at this angle, but he understood the general gist.

"What happened at dinner? Is this about school? Did I get you in trouble?" Hiro felt a smile on Tadashi's soft lips over his concern.

"Well... I thought that Aunt Cass suspected that we have feelings for each other, but now she thinks I'm dating a girl from the school."

Hiro sat up in alarm. The sentence had been lost in translation as Tadashi was mumbling and alarmed Hiro.

"You're dating someone?!" Hiro exclaimed in dismay. The hand he had on Tadashi's face gripped tighter in response causing Tadashi to laugh at the mistake. Hiro felt himself fall down on the bed again as Tadashi regained control and pinned Hiro beneath him. He relished the desperate kiss Tadashi gave him which told him, without words, that he had misinterpreted Tadashi, with some of his words not coming through clearly. Tadashi's desperation sparked an idea for Hiro.

"Tadashi, I want you to have sex with me." He asked boldly when the older brother ended their passionate kiss, finally finding the right time to request. It felt good to have his brother over him, too often than not Hiro had been the instigator of their entanglements.

He felt Tadashi's body tense and begin to draw away. Hiro moved his hand from Tadashi's lips where he had been waiting for a hopeful response to wrap his arms around his brother's neck in an attempt to keep him from moving away. Tadashi used this as an opportunity to raise him from his back, sitting him up to face each other.

"Please Tadashi!" He begged, as he reached his hand forward again to find his brother's face.

Tadashi gently grabbed his hand and readjusted it to the correct position in order to respond. The only thing Hiro knew right now was his own heart beating powerfully in his chest, the soft lips against his fingers, and the strong hand over his own. _Please say yes Tadashi_. He had been obsessed with the idea of opening his own small world up to new experiences that he could only explore with his brother.

"No." Said Tadashi clearly, and Hiro's heart sank. "Not yet." Not yet?

"Why not?" Asked Hiro in haste, hope in his voice.

"You don't know what you're asking of me Hiro." His brother replied. Hiro was sure he knew a lot more than his brother thought he did.

"Is it because you're a... virgin?" His pronunciation for 'virgin' was very off, using a hard 'g' sound, as it was the first time he had uttered the word out loud but it was close enough for Tadashi to understand. He felt Tadashi gasp slightly and his skin felt warmer, which usually meant that Tadashi was excited or embarrassed.

"Virgin." Tadashi repeated after a pause, emphasising the soft 'j' sound, as he always did when Hiro mispronounced a new word. Hiro smiled that Tadashi was still teaching him even though he was uncomfortable. Hiro repeated the word a few times, until Tadashi approved of it.

"Yes, I am a virgin." Tadashi admitted, "But that's not why I'm worried." Hiro waited for more, "You're still only a kid Hiro. You're not ready for... sex." He said that last word hesitantly. Hiro noticed that Tadashi always seemed to get nervous when discussing sexual related themes with him. His brother had a lot more shame than he did.

"Are you worried about hurting me?" Hiro enquired further.

"Yes, I am Hiro." Tadashi said, relieved that his little brother was beginning to understand.

"We don't need to go all the way straight away. We can practice! I want all of you!" Hiro finished by pouncing forwards, kissing Tadashi and trying to pin him down. Unlike usual, Tadashi did not allow himself to be submitted by his playful little brother, staying upright in Hiro's adorable attempt to dominate him.

Hiro gave up, drawing himself away, realising that his brother wasn't going to budge that easily.

"You're scared, aren't you? About what other people will think? That's why you're lying to Aunt Cass?" He asked, replacing his lips with his fingers over Tadashi's mouth.

"Yes Hiro, I am very scared." Admitted Tadashi.

Hiro had read up on the social stigma regarding their relationship as Tadashi had never delved deeply into the subject with him. Nearly everything about Hiro including his gender, age, disabilities and especially kinship made them star-crossed lovers. But while he knew about the taboos, it was impossible for him to understand the repercussions. Touch is the main way that people like himself navigate, communicate and connect with others. In a society where touch is not encouraged, concepts about caring what the outside world thought where he personally knew so few people meant nothing to him. 

But he did want to understand Tadashi. A huge part of Hiro wanted to scream and call Tadashi selfish, but he knew that was wrong and for Tadashi to admit he was scared was very important. His brother had never said he was scared before.

"I'm sorry Hiro, I promise we will some day. Just wait for me to be ready." He felt Tadashi's lips turn into a smile, "Usually that should be said the other way around."

Hiro smiled back, "What makes you think you'll be on top! I have as much as experience as you have!"

"Oh, maybe because of... this!" Tadashi said right before taking Hiro by surprise, causing a soft 'unf' and resuming his earlier dominant position, kissing Hiro deeply.

Hiro's flesh tingled at the sensation of Tadashi's fingers trialling under his shirt, lightly caressing his skin. Hiro hastily unbuckled his own shorts, longing for more contact with his brother, and drawing them down to his knees, just enough so he could easily access his growing erection.

Tadashi had drawn the ever changing line at touching each other's penises, but had agreed to Hiro's compromise of letting him touch himself. His mind hungrily grew back to when he had convinced Tadashi to teach him how to masturbate just a couple of weeks ago, his brother's hand had been gripped over his own hand guiding his strokes as he desperately wished for uninterrupted contact. He had of course already experimented with himself, but Tadashi didn't know about that at the time.

The fingers under Hiro's shirt found one of his nipples, which Tadashi brushed lightly back and forth causing him to moan and buck his hips. They had discovered that he was very sensitive there, which was a weakness which both Hamada brothers shared.

The immersion from Tadashi's now well-practised tongue, the over-stimulation of his nipples and his own frantic hand soon brought Hiro over the edge and he could feel himself gasp at the release, which landed mostly on his own bare stomach. The warm sticky substance always came as a surprise, and he usually waited patiently for Tadashi to clean up after him.

Hiro had quite a bit of semen on his hands, and out of curiosity he brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted himself. He withdrew his fingers almost immediately, the taste and consistency were quite different than anything he had ever tasted. It was very salty. He wondered if Tadashi tasted the same and wondered if his brother would have come in his mouth if he were allowed to have continue other day.

He gasped in surprise once again when he felt Tadashi's mouth over his fingers, sucking suggestively and cleaning the cum off his hands with his tongue. Usually the older boy just cleaned him up with tissues. Hiro giggled as Tadashi's mouth went lower, as he began lapping up the pool on his stomach tickling him. It was an odd sensation, but he was thrilled at the idea of a part of him being inside his brother. When he was done, Tadashi's mouth returned to Hiro's to kiss him. Hiro accepted the kiss, and admired the change of chemistry from their usual kisses as he tasted himself on Tadashi's mouth. 

He couldn't say he was a fan of the bitter taste, but was happy to accept the kiss all the same. Hiro was sure that Tadashi's cum would taste a whole lot sweeter. 

"Do I taste okay?" He asked tentatively when they came up for air.

"You taste amazing, Hiro." Tadashi said immediately, before breaking the tadoma contact and kissing him once more.


	7. The Lies that we Weave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When it rains, it pours. Casually uploading 3 chapters in 2 days after a hiatus of a few months. Next chapter out soon.

For the past three days Aunt Cass has been hounding Tadashi about his new girlfriend. She had always been nosy about his personal life, and now that he finally had a love interest she wasn't going to let him live it down. 

_What does she look like? What is she studying? Did you really only meet the other day? Korean? That's interesting! When are you going to invite her around? Are you worried that I might embarrass you? Busy studying tonight? I thought you said she was at a birthday party._

Her questions were relentless, and honestly he couldn't remember much about Gogo other than that she was short, wore a lot of leather and didn't seem to like him very much. 

"When should I be expecting grand-kids? Would that make me a Grand Aunt?" She asked jokingly, confronting him one morning as he finished his morning workout routine before Hiro woke up.

Tadashi was exhausted from his late night research, and he had been woken up in the middle of the night again by Hiro which he definitely enjoyed at the time. Now that it was 6am in the morning, his white shirt clinging to his body and dripping in sweat after his morning routine, he really wasn't feeling up to playing this game with his Aunt.

"Aunt Cass, just drop it. Gogo and I aren't serious." Tadashi said shortly , walking past his Aunt who was holding her early morning croissant and double shot of coffee. Tadashi walked into the bathroom, where he nonchalantly ripped his shirt off and tossed it into the laundry basket. He ran the water in the basin, splashing his face refreshingly with the cool splashes.

He would have to apologise to his Aunt for being so curt. At least it would be the end of those questions about his imaginary girlfriend. He was beginning to think she was asking him so much information to try and trip him up to make a mistake, his guilty conscious still not convinced that she didn't suspect something sinister.

When Tadashi stood up and looked at himself in the mirror, he yelled out loud and jumped around. The stern face of Aunt Cass was behind him, arms crossed and looking displeased. If he wasn't awake before, he certainly was now. 

"I can't believe you, Tadashi Hamada. Why didn't I see it before? I should have known but I thought so much better of you."

Tadashi simply stared blankly back at her. She found out just from that? Maybe he should have pushed his non-existent relationship with Gogo further. In his stunned silence he noticed her eyes look over his exposed body, and he suddenly felt very embarrassed. Tadashi had always worked out alone in their garage, and the only person he was intimate with and would be comfortable seeing him bare wasn't really in the position to judge him for his physical appearance. 

He was acutely aware of all the small bruises and bite marks which Hiro had left behind, and he moved his arms shyly in front of his chest as if that would hide anything on his broad torso. She must have also noticed the shallow scratches on his shoulders from when he didn't know she was behind him. While Tadashi was always gentle with Hiro, his brother always wanted to do and feel more, which often resulted in being a little rough which Tadashi didn't mind at all. 

"So you did all of that with a girl you just met? I can't believe you turned out to be such a fuck boy!" She exclaimed angrily.

Tadashi blinked, confused, but then couldn't help but laugh. Had Aunt Cass actually just call him a fuck boy? Nobody used that word anymore but he knew what it meant. He laughed more, the memory of Hiro asking him the other night out of no where if he was a virgin coming to mind. _Ah yes, I'm Tadashi Hamada, the ultimate player. King of the fuckboys._

"Don't just laugh at me! I thought I taught you to have more respect for women! More respect for yourself!" Even Aunt Cass couldn't hold her smile back, even though she tried her best to sound angry. Despite her 19-year old nephew's undeniably good looks and toned body, she quickly realised how ridiculous it was for Tadashi to have a one night stand. Her nephew never admitted to having a crush or liking anybody at school, and she had never seen him so much as take a second glance at an attractive woman (or man for that matter) when they were in town.

Tadashi was amused as Aunt Cass' eyes narrowed as she contemplated the situation. Just who was this Gogo Tomago who was courting her sweet Tadashi? She must really be heart-stopping to trick Tadashi into being seduced so quickly.

Tadashi decided he had to say something soon. She was being quiet and looked like she was thinking. Aunt Cass came to dangerous conclusions when she was left to her infamous rants, but she was even more perilous when she was quiet and contemplating. He didn't know what she was thinking, but he really didn't want to give her time to draw to the very real conclusion that it wasn't Gogo at all. In hindsight he should have just told her he had joined a paintball skirmish team.

"Aunt Cass, I'm not a... fuckboy." Tadashi started, he wondered if that was what Hiro felt like when he learns an unfamiliar word.

Aunt Cass put a finger up and shushed him, telling him she was thinking. He took the opportunity to grab the nearest towel and cover himself up, still a little uncomfortable being exposed even though her gaze wasn't at all lascivious.

"I want to meet her otherwise you are grounded for a month," His Aunt concluded, "invite her over to dinner tomorrow night."

Tadashi had never actually been grounded before, and to have it happen to him at 19 was a low swing. But to be fair, he didn't pay her any rent and he was living under her roof. On the other hand, Tadashi didn't leave the house all that often except for escorting Hiro to school and he doubted she would stop him going to SFIT when it started so it wasn't a huge threat to his lifestyle. 

"OK, I'll invite her over but she might be a bit weird about being invited over to meet my family already. You have to promise you won't interrogate her." He conceded, regretting it immediately when he saw Aunt Cass' face light up in glee. Yep, she was definitely going into interrogation mode. She thanked him as she left quickly, as the kitchen timer started going off letting her know some of her sweets had finished baking.

He closed the door after her and double checked that he locked it. He sighed, finally at peace and turned around and took a good look at his body. The scratches on his back were a reminder that he had forgotten to trim Hiro's nails this week. Both Hiro's hair and nails grew very fast, and as Hiro didn't like to be touched by many people, trimming was left to Tadashi which had lead to some questionable haircuts in the past. He still occasionally cringed at the memory of when Aunt Cass handed him the scissors and a bowl when Tadashi was eleven after Hiro rejected her. Even six year old Hiro could tell he had just gotten a bad haircut.

Tadashi had to admit that his body looked good, and he couldn't help but smile at the marks that Hiro had left behind in his enthusiasm to touch him. Some of the bigger bruises were from Hiro simply being a little clumsy, but most were from his brother's fervent touching, kissing and much to Tadashi's surprise when it first occurred, the occasional nipping. 

Tadashi removed his gym shorts, and realised he had an erection from thinking about Hiro, which wasn't an uncommon occurrence. He had resisted masturbating together with Hiro, even though he knew his brother would love it. The small rules he gave himself kept him sane from the guilt he was having at hiding their relationship as if making these small protocols would save him from some form of higher judgement. He only had two rules. He would always let Hiro take the lead, and secondly he would never let things get too far. It worked in theory, but what was considered 'too far' was a constantly moving guideline rather than a rule.

He maintained his erection in the shower, and he allowed his imagination to think about the things he would love to do with Hiro. He closed his eyes and remembered waking up to Hiro's soft, wet mouth wrapped around the tip of his cock, barely taking in more than his head while his hands worked frantically on his shaft. Hiro's voice resounded in his mind, adamantly asking Hiro to have sex with him. His brother had a knack for always throwing him off guard and had left him stunned. Images that Tadashi were ashamed to fantasize came to mind. Hiro underneath him, begging and moaning for more brought Tadashi to the edge, causing him to ejaculate with a muffled grunt. Tadashi finished off the rest of the shower in haste, as he helped his Aunt set up the cafe every morning.

Thankfully, Aunt Cass didn't question Tadashi while he helped her set up. Maybe she had decided that Tadashi was shy and didn't want to make him back out of agreeing to invite Gogo around for dinner. Whatever the reason, he was glad that she had decided to drop it and she didn't have time to discuss it once the cafe opened with the morning commuter rush. Tadashi could make a mean coffee, but Aunt Cass was going to need to hire someone soon once the semester started up.

Usually after the rush, Hiro would come down like clockwork and catch the cable car to school which was only two stops away, and without fail Tadashi would follow him to make sure he arrived safely. Tadashi realised that in a couple of weeks he wouldn't be able to do that as he had classes starting as early as 7am. Hiro never had any incidents but he couldn't help but be concerned about sending Hiro out alone.

After the flow slowed down, Tadashi went back up to the attic. Hiro still appeared to be asleep, and Tadashi decided to let him be and sat at his desk. He appeared to be having dreamless sleep, which was good because his brother often had nightmares. Hiro usually woke up and on occasion when he felt up to it it, would tell him about his dream. Tadashi was of course very interested in his dreams, as it told him a lot about how active his visual cortex was subconsciously.

Tadashi flicked through his phone, he only had a few contacts and most of them were new. He swiped through the list, pausing over the names of his new friends Fred, Wasabi and Honey Lemon. He decided Honey Lemon would be the best way to go and sent her a text asking for Gogo's number. He put his phone down for only a minute until the vibration told him there was an incoming call. He didn't expect a response so soon, and was very surprised when he answered Honey Lemon.

"Hello, Tadashi speaking." He said politely. He was really hoping to have the conversation through text, as he wasn't planning on improvising a reason as to why he would need Gogo's number. Tadashi hardly noticed that Hiro had woken up and wandered over to his desk. Tadashi subconsciously moved a bit to allow Hiro easier access to his lap and finger-spelled out the word 'phone' to let him know he was busy.

"What do you want, Hamada?" The crude response was punctuated with a pop of a bubble. Clearly Gogo had commandeered Honey Lemon's phone. 

Inspired, in a move that was almost as straightforward as his brother he asked her, "Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

She replied with another bubble pop. He could hear Honey Lemon giggling in the background, and Wasabi's voice asking loudly 'Did Tadashi just ask Gogo out?!'. They must have been in the lab already. 

"I don't know what your game is Hamada but I don't like it." She said finally. Her voice sounded a lot clearer and she realised that she must have been on loudspeaker before as he could no longer hear Honey Lemon's incessant giggling.

"Look, it won't be anything fancy. My Aunt runs the Lucky Cat Cafe and she wanted me to invite a friend over to try the new menu."

"So you asked me?" She wasn't buying it.

"It's um... Korean." Aunt Cass doesn't cook anything Korean. "No, it's not. I'm sorry, I just... never mind. Forget about it." His earlier confidence was gone. It was the first time he had to ask anyone out, and he was flustered even though he had no romantic feelings for Gogo.

"It's Korean. That's what you were going with?" Surprisingly he heard her amusement in her voice. "You're strange, Hamada. Tomorrow night at 7. I know the place, I'll see you there." He heard cheering in the background as Wasabi and Honey Lemon both squeeled 'It's a date!'. He heard Gogo yelling at them to shut up before the call abruptly disconnected.

Tadashi sighed in relief. That went surprisingly well!

"'Dashi? Are you done?" Asked Hiro, which Tadashi responded to with a yes and hugging him closer. Tadashi was so focused on the call, and Hiro had been so light and quiet that Tadashi had forgotten that he only just got there.

"Who were you asking out to dinner?" Tadashi detected a bit of jealousy in his brother's uneven cadence. He didn't realise that Hiro had been using the Tadoma method as he was speaking to Gogo, his touch feeling so second nature by now. Tadashi responded slowly, making sure each word was understood as to not cause a panic like last time Gogo had been mentioned.

"Tadashi, I don't think this is a good idea." Hiro said when Tadashi had finished explaining, "Why don't you just tell Aunt Cass the truth?"

Tadashi tried to explain why again, which resulted in a heavy sigh from Hiro.

"She might be angry but isn't it better than lying? And what happens if this girl actually likes you? Are you going to pretend to be her boyfriend? For how long, Tadashi?" Hiro was so cute when he was jealous. He was talking a lot faster than his usual slow and calculated word pacing.

"Don't worry Hiro, there's a 0% chance that Gogo likes me. It'll just be one night to show Aunt Cass that I like somebody else, and she'll see that we have no chemistry so she won't be surprised when I tell her I'm not seeing her any more." 

He was surprised to see Hiro shaking his head in disagreement, and Hiro brought up a very valid point, "Tadashi, you say there's a 0% chance, but she agreed to come without knowing it's a setup. Doesn't that tell you that she's at least slightly interested? I just don't have a good feeling about this."

Tadashi's heart sank again as his phone lit up with an unknown number with a text simply saying: Hey, it's Gogo.


	8. The Lucky Cat Cafe

Aunt Cass was excited to meet Tadashi's new girlfriend. She had always thought that Tadashi spent too much time worrying about Hiro, that he never had enough time to live his own life. She had been disappointed when he originally turned down his university offers when he had graduated, and was relieved when he finally applied for SFIT. That boy was much too selfless, she had never seen him put his own needs before someone else.

She knew Hiro was an amazing boy too, but their conversations always seemed awkward and rehearsed. Tadashi had told her that it came across as impersonal only using technology to communicate, but she couldn't get her head around the touch methods that they used together. She just never knew quite what to say to him, and at some point she had just given up. Hiro seemed much happier communicating with his brother.

She could just never get over the pity that she felt for the younger Hamada, causing her to always use careful wording rather than just having a casual conversation. The professionals she had spoken to, whether it were doctors or teachers were always impressed by his intelligence but it always just made her feel sadder. They would always tell her how great his mind was and that he had an amazing IQ. 

A year Hiro had completely lost his hearing was the year when she became most afraid about raising this child. She didn't have the qualifications for this sort of thing. Surely he would have to be dependent on someone for the rest of his life? She didn't sign up for this. She would always remember Hiro's 7th birthday. Young Tadashi had made a present just for Hiro with what she recognised as a rubix cube, he explained to her that he had added braille to it.

She watched Hiro and Tadashi in the corner of her eye that day while she was running the cafe, the big brother patiently teaching Hiro the different algorithms to solve the puzzle quietly in their own corner booth. By the end of the shift when the last customer had gone Tadashi had ran up to Aunt Cass beaming that Hiro had something to show her. Sure enough, Hiro solved the scrambled rubix cube in what must have been under five minutes. This little boy without the use of sight and sound, only through touch managed to learn so quickly with his big brother's help. It was at that moment that she realised just how grown up Tadashi had become in such a short amount of time, and that she was merely a guardian on paper for Hiro.

Tadashi took on the responsibilities for Hiro without having to be asked. Aunt Cass knew she had it very easy when she compared herself to other guardians with deafblind children. She had met with parents of the Deafblind Association a few years back and the struggles they had to face with simple things like training their kids of the same age as Hiro to keep their clothes on and the academic challenges they encountered such as learning braille made her feel like she didn't belong in the society at all. With Tadashi being so dependable, she was able to live her own life relatively normally. But because of this he was missing out on his own childhood.

This was why she was so excited for Tadashi to finally take an interest in someone else. She knew her nephews meant the world to each other, but it wasn't healthy for a grown man to be spending all of his time with his brother. There was too much wasted potential and now that Hiro was older he was quite self-sufficient as long as he was given a routine to follow.

Aunt Cass hummed to herself as she prepared the table in the cafe. She decided that it would be nicer to host the dinner downstairs, and that way the girl would be less inclined to ask to stay over. She wanted to meet the girl, but she wasn't quite ready to induct her into the family. From what she could tell, this girl was rather frisky with her innocent Tadashi.

The cat clock on the wall chimed on the hour, telling her it was 7pm. She yelled up the stairs calling down her nephews. They came down after a few minutes, Hiro holding his hand as they walked down carefully together. It was nice to see that Tadashi had made an effort to look presentable, although a little mismatched with his suit jacket and normal tee underneath. He had dressed Hiro up with a plain button up shirt and long pants rather than his usual shorts, but must not have had time to trim his hair as it was still falling in front of his eyes and his layers were mostly grown out. He looked rather feminine, should would have to remind Tadashi to give him a haircut before he started school again. The younger Hamada was acting more demure than usual, following his brother's lead with an expression she couldn't read. 

The distinct sound of a motorbike roared outside, an the rider parked right up next to Tadashi's modest scooter. The rider who dismounted was shorter than she expected, but she couldn't have a good look of the girl just yet. Tadashi had already walked up to the door to open it and welcome her in, with Hiro following him as usual like his little duckling. Aunt Cass decided to busy herself behind the kitchen for the final preparations, Tadashi had made her promise not to be too full-on, and she didn't want to scare the guest. She also wanted to observe them from afar.

"Alright, I'm here Hamada." Hamada? That was an interesting choice of a nickname. Aunt Cass didn't think she liked this girl very much. Between the short, coloured hair, the copious amount of leather, and the attitude, she definitely fit the description of a girl who didn't like dates and got straight to the action. She was surprised Tadashi would go for someone like her.

"Thanks for coming, Gogo!" Tadashi said, sincerely happy to see her. He stepped aside and allowed her to come in. She took a look at the figure clinging to Tadashi's free arm who was only just a bit shorter than she was. With Hiro and Gogo standing near each other, Aunt Cass couldn't help but notice the similarity between the two silhouettes. The short tomboy had a very similar hairstyle to Hiro, and she must have been very smart to be studying at SFIT. Aunt Cass couldn't help but wonder if that was a factor for Tadashi's crush. 

"This must be Hiro." Her voice had softened from the hard edge she had used earlier. Hiro never failed to make the people around him sympathetic, even though he wasn't aware of it. Tadashi confirmed, telling her that she could meet him properly a bit later as he was being a bit shy at the moment. He smoothly offered her his free arm, which Gogo suspiciously took and lead her to the table which was already covered in an assortment of dishes. Aunt Cass had been working on the feast since store close.

"Gogo, this is my Aunt Cass." That was her cue. Okay Cass, just go over there and introduce yourself.

"Hi Gogo, it's lovely to meet you! Sorry for asking you over so soon, Tadashi just couldn't stop talking about you and I just had to meet you." She gave Gogo a hug which wasn't returned. Well, this was awkward. Not the touchy type, she couldn't deal with that.

When she released the hug she made eye contact with Tadashi who was looking at her with an expression that told her to shut up. Right, of course, he didn't want to seem too interested in her which made sense considering how cool she was acting in comparison to Tadashi's advances. She couldn't read the expression on Gogo's face but it didn't seem very impressed.

"Right... nice to meet you too." Gogo said, "...the food smells delicious." She said, trying to move onto a more comfortable topic.

"Let's eat!" Aunt Cass announced to alleviate the awkwardness, and both Tadashi and Gogo visibly sighed in relief. 

Tadashi pulled Gogo's chair out for her before helping Hiro into his own. Both of the women watched him communicate with Hiro to see what food he wanted and how much he needed. Aunt Cass was amused that even with a new girl in his life to impress, Tadashi still treated Hiro as his number one priority. Cass found her gaze moving to Gogo, who was curious about the pair as it must have been her first exposure to their special type of talking.

"He can understand you just by touching your face?" Gogo asked Tadashi, curiosity getting the better of her. The method was very outdated, especially in this day and age where it was a lot easier to communicate to the deafblind with text based technology. 

Tadashi happily explained the Tadoma method to her in more detail than he would a normal person. Cass had tried it a few times with Hiro but they had both given up after a while, the misunderstanding frustating both of them. Gogo seemed impressed and asked if she could give it a try after dinner.

The dinner conversation was pleasant. It was clear that the young couple didn't know each other very well, but that was to be expected as they had only met recently. Cass decided to sit back and watch only commenting here and there. In hindsight she really shouldn't have set up a family date. She forgot to ask Tadashi if they had even been on a normal date together, but clearly they hadn't yet as a lot of questions they asked of each other were quite basic up until the part where they started talking about quantum physics.

In a particularly in-depth discussion about something Aunt Cass didn't understand, she looked over to see how Hiro was going. He wasn't eating very much of his plate, choosing instead to push around his peas. The routine change of being downstairs probably disconcerted him. He wasn't sure if Tadashi told him about his dinner guest, but presumably he had. Hiro wasn't used to not being paid attention to by Tadashi.

When they had finished Aunt Cass took the plates away, both Tadashi and to her surprise Gogo offered to help her. Hiro had hardly touched his food, so she put it away for him to eat later. She surveyed the trio who were now sitting together in a circle while she was washing up.

Tadashi finally brought Gogo over to meet Hiro properly. He spoke to Hiro first, letting him know that Gogo was there to meet him. Hiro offered out his hand and Tadashi instructed Gogo to place her own on it. Deafblind people might not see what others look like, or what they are wearing, but first impressions still count, and these impressions were transmitted by hands. Tense hands and awkward movements? Neurotic. Firm yet relaxed hands with a steady rhythm? Conscientious and open.

"Hello Gogo, it's a pleasure to meet you." Hiro said politely looking in her vague direction, as he always did when he met someone. He let go of her hand after a minute and Gogo looked at Tadashi in a way of asking what to do next. Tadashi had a quick chat using finger-braille, before letting Gogo know that she can try using Tadoma to speak to him. Aunt Cass was surprised because Hiro usually didn't like touching a stranger's face. Tadashi corrected Hiro's fingers a little, as he was so used to Tadashi's face it was a bit odd for him to have to adjust to someone smaller.

"Hello Hiro, can you understand me?" Gogo asked, talking slowly and clearly. Hiro responded, saying that he could. Tadashi seemed impressed, as was Aunt Cass. It usually took a lot longer for Hiro to adjust to a new person, and even then the communication wasn't usually very clear.

"What grade are you in and how old are you?" Gogo asked, trying to keep the conversation going, "Tadashi tells me you're a bit of a genius." This would be the real test of the effectiveness of the Tadoma method. There were a lot more words for Hiro process.

Hiro shook his head in disagreement, "I'm not a genius. Everyone says that but I'm fourteen and I'm a freshman just like everyone else in my age group. I'm failing my classes this semester actually." Hiro had always been modest. Two years ago the Deafblind Association had temporarily used Hiro as a modern day Helen Keller mascot. Hiro later asked to turn down the sponsorship as he didn't enjoy being paraded around as he didn't think he was something for people to aspire to. "What do you do at SFIT, Gogo? I would love to go there someday, Tadashi told me all about it."

Gogo explained her mechanical engineering degree, and how she was designing a new kind of bicycle with improved speed and velocity with pinpoint turning. Tadashi encouraged her to keep talking more in-depth, as Hiro enjoyed learning and he asked for clarification when he was confused. Both Tadashi and Aunt Cass looked on in fascination at the exchange, neither of them having seen Hiro so receptive to another person. 

"What if the problem is in the body of the bike and not the wheels?" Hiro suggested, after Gogo was telling him about the problems she was facing in removing resistance and all the different prototypes she had made for the discs, "If your the body is acting as the permanent field, shouldn't you be refining that first?" She contemplated this for a moment, and made eye contact with Tadashi who was smiling at them contently. 

Hiro continued, worried about the silence from Gogo, "I mean, I don't know anything about bikes... I think I still have the scar from when I tried to ride Tadashi's bike," He admitted. Aunt Cass could clearly remember the time Hiro had convinced Tadashi to teach him how to ride a bicycle, it was one of the few times she had to question his lapse in judgement. They laughed about it in hindsight and luckily Hiro only needed a few stitches in his arm.

"Sorry Hiro, you just had me thinking. You actually have a very good point. I haven't really touched the body since creating it and now that I think about the design is the most aerodynamic based a normal mechanical bike, but it doesn't take into account the weight imbalances from the electromagnets, and a redesign might help with the ohmic heating and minor core losses I've been experiencing."

"I glad I could help. It was nice meeting you Gogo." Hiro said with a smile, and released his light grip on her face. Aunt Cass saw this an as opportunity to wander over with dessert, bringing over some of the Lucky Cat Cafe's famous creme brule. Tadashi and Hiro were chatting again, using the Japanese finger-braille method. It was a little bit rude of Tadashi to ignore his guest, but she had a feeling that Tadashi was congratulating Hiro on speaking so well to Gogo tonight.

"Thanks Cass," Gogo said, accepting the plate happily. She seemed a lot more relaxed now than what she did when she had first arrived, "What are they doing now?" She asked, jerking her head in the direction of Hiro and Tadashi. Aunt Cass explained it briefly as another way that they could communicate, but admitted she didn't know much about it. Tadashi interjected for her, finishing up his de-brief with Hiro and explained how it was a very efficient, tactile version of Japanese.

"Hiro's an incredible kid," She admitted, "I can see why you're dedicating your thesis project to him." Tadashi smiled, as he always did when Hiro received praise. Tadashi was always Hiro's proudest supporter.

"I'd do anything for him." Tadashi admitted, "Thanks so much for talking to him tonight Gogo, he really enjoyed it. It's not often that he meets someone that can talk freely to him." Aunt Cass flinched as Tadashi made eye contact with her, triggering a nerve. Aunt Cass felt a little bit guilty at those words. She had mostly given up on talking to Hiro on a personal level, communicating nearly solely through Tadashi. When she had, she had definitely chose her wording carefully as if she were talking to someone very delicate. 

"No worries. I'm probably going to head off now, Hiro has given me some new ideas I want to work on. Thanks for the dinner Cass, you've earnt yourself a customer." Gogo said, drawing away from the table. She reached out and touched Hiro's hand, and Tadashi took his other hand and showed her the simple finger-spelling of how to say goodbye.

Gogo didn't seem too bad, although she was leaving in quite a hurry. She suggested that Tadashi walk her out, and that she would get Hiro ready for bed. Tadashi agreed to the suggestion, but Gogo seemed a bit surprised.

"You live here with your Aunt?" Aunt Cass felt a little hurt. Clearly she hadn't been mentioned much.

"Yeah, it's a long story but Aunt Cass raised us, she's practically our mom." Aww, she suddenly felt a lot better.

Aunt Cass let them talk and went over to Hiro, and grabbed his hand to take him upstairs. He seemed confused by her touch, and cried out for Tadashi in an almost panicked voice. They both paused at the door and looked at her as if she had just slapped him. Tadashi came over swiftly and hugged Hiro, and explained to the girls out loud for their benefit, "I think I confused him by signing goodbye to him."

"That's cool, I can show myself out. I'm literally parked right outside. Goodnight Hamada."

Aunt Cass urged Tadashi to follow her, she had decided she liked the girl even though she came off as a bit stiff at first. It would be a shame for Tadashi to lose a girl that got along so well with Hiro since he was such a huge part of his life. He seemed reluctant but at her insistence he followed her outside to say a proper goodbye, cradle carrying Hiro with him leaving Aunt Cass to clean up inside.

\----

Tonight certainly was an interesting night. It went far better than expected and both Aunt Cass and Gogo seemed pleased enough. Aunt Cass wouldn't be suspicious anymore, and that was a huge weight off of his chest. He caught up with Gogo just before she put her helmet on. Tadashi lowered Hiro to the ground, who resumed his usual position of holding his hand and hugging his arm.

"You're really strange, Hamada. If I had known that this would have been a family date I wouldn't have come. When you said this was your Aunt's place I didn't think you she was that close to you."

Tadashi ruffled the back of his hair with his free hand, "Sorry about that, you didn't really give me much time to explain." It was probably fortunate that the date was so awkward, the last thing he needed was Hiro's premonition of Gogo getting a crush on him.

"You know, most guys don't invite a girl out to their parents place for their first date. " Her eyes flicked down to look at Hiro who was standing slightly behind him like a tiny shadow. "Half of me thinks this is an elaborate plot to get me to help you with your thesis project."

Tadashi laughed at that, he absolutely could use her help bringing his project to life. "Well, are you on board?" He asked her half jokingly. 

"Jerk." He was rewarded with a solid punch in the arm, but then she too smiled. "Alright, you win. I'll help, but only because Hiro gave me something to think about tonight." 

"Thanks Gogo, that would be a tremendous help!" Tadashi beamed, "Unfortunately we're on a tight time-frame for the tech to work for Hiro so the more hands on deck the better." Everything went better than planned. Aunt Cass was happy, and now Gogo could look over the mechanical design aspects of his work with her critical eye. He needed this tech to work flawlessly.

Gogo reached over and touched Hiro's hand which was holding onto Tadashi's sleeve. He let go of the sleeve and stepped out of his brother's shadow a little bit. Tadashi watched as she tactile signed goodbye to him again which he responded to warmly. Much to both brothers' surprise she leant forward and gave Hiro a peck on the cheek. Tadashi was stunned as Gogo followed it up by planting a kiss on his own cheek.

"Good night Tadashi." She said, using his name for a change. He simply stared at her as she took off quickly, not waiting for a response.

He felt a tug on his hand and looked down at Hiro, who obviously wanted to discuss the kiss. "Just checking, but that wasn't you who kissed me, right?" Hiro asked, perplexed as it was unusual for someone else to be kissing him.

"No it wasn't," Tadashi replied in finger-braille, "Sometimes you're too charming little brother. I think she likes us."

"I told you so!" Hiro replied brightly. Tadashi groaned. Sometimes he hated it when his brother was right. What happened to being the older brother?


	9. A Christmas Special

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! I know it's been forever since I've posted, but I am still around and this story is still alive! Here's a bit of a special that I was trying to get out before Christmas (just a little late). Please be patient as I write the main story!

The Christmas of three years ago brought on many firsts for the Hamada brothers. For Hiro, it was the first time he had encountered snow. As for Tadashi? He discovered his burgeoning, impure feelings for his little brother. 

The Lucky Cat Cafe was brilliantly adorned both inside and out for the holiday season. Aunt Cass had really gone all out this year! She of course had the help of Tadashi, her young but dependable nephew. Tadashi had even gone as far as to individually program the Christmas lights to flash different colors in time to Christmas songs. Unfortunately, much to nearly everyone’s displeasure, Aunt Cass favored her playlist which she dubbed as her ‘Mariah Madness’ CD, where every second song played ‘All I want for Christmas is You’.

Christmas for the family was usually a private and sombre affair, with her nephews largely treating the holiday season just as any other time of year spending time with each other and leaving her to largely unsuccessful dates.

The Christmas disasters weren’t for a lack of trying. The first few years Aunt Cass attempted vehemently to promote the Christmas spirit within the family. It was the most magical time of the year afterall! Surprisingly enough, Hiro didn’t react very well to being forced to sit on the knee of a strange old man with a synthetic beard and bad breath, and it was a tradition his parents never had. He thought Aunt Cass was mad, and couldn’t understood why she would let a stranger break in through the chimney and leave gifts. As for Tadashi, he had always been too smart for his own good to believe in Santa and he knew his Aunt was tight for cash and declined presents. While he was usually very helpful when it came to helping his little brother, he didn’t want to play any part in Aunt Cass’ attempts at introducing Hiro to festivities. He had told her it was largely a waste of time and that Hiro would prefer to to stay home away from the crowds.

Void of the glitz and glamour from the sights and sounds of Christmas there left little for Hiro to embrace. But there were a few things Hiro enjoyed from the holidays. He loved the crisp coolness in the air, even though it never seemed to get cold enough to snow in San Fransokyo. He loved the smell of gingerbread and the piney scent of Christmas trees. But most of all he loved the time spent at home with his brother over the Winter breaks, playing games like chess and Dungeons & Dragons under a warm kotatsu, a hot chocolate drink with marshmallows and joined by their cat Mochi who loved snuggling Hiro for warmth. Hiro could sit for hours with that cat and they enjoyed each other’s companionship.

‘What would you like for Christmas?’ Tadashi asked his brother a week before Christmas. He had expected the usual response of a new book or a new puzzle but his brother was always full of surprises.

“Does it have to be an object or can I wish for anything?” Hiro had responded slowly and tentatively as if nervous. He was urged on by his brother to continue. “I want to go somewhere with you. My class all went on a school trip before Thanksgiving to a ski lodge, I was thinking you could take me there?” Tadashi asked him to hold onto that thought and immediately rushed from under the kotatsu to Aunt Cass on the couch, thrilled with the prospect of taking Hiro on an adventure. He was a bit excited himself, having not been outside of San Fransokyo since he was a young child.

“Wassup kid?” Aunt Cass asked, looking away from her annual rewatch of ‘Love, Actually’, “Want some popcorn?” She asked, offering him the bowl. He shook his head and relayed to her that Hiro would like to go somewhere else for Christmas. 

Aunt Cass was rather hesitant. She needed all the help in the cafe that she could get with all the parties coming through, so she couldn’t leave the cafe to accompany them on their trip. The only time they were closed was for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and she had already planned a trip months ago with her current boyfriend Paul.

“Oh, I don’t know Tadashi, I need you in the cafe this week and Paul and I are already going away on Christmas. Who’s going to feed Mochi?”

“Come on Aunt Cass! Mrs Matsuda can take care of Mochi, it’s only two days and Hiro hardly ever asks for anything.”

She sighed and paused her movie. “I don’t know Tadashi, it’s going to be impossible to find affordable accommodation this close to Christmas… the only thing I can think of is if you come to the lodge with Paul and I. But Tadashi, I don’t know if Paul will like the idea.”

Tadashi had to up the ante and used the best ammunition he had. “This would really mean a lot to Hiro, Aunt Cass. It would mean a lot to me. Please Aunt Cass, look at him!” She looked over at her small nephew who was sitting quietly and patiently waiting for his brother to come back with good news, and Tadashi knew he had won. “Besides, Paul’s been trying to get chummy with Hiro and I for ages. He’ll probably see this as a sign that we’re warming up to him.”

Aunt Cass was losing the back and forth battle and Tadashi finally won her over in the end with a compelling argument and the promise that he would take over her morning shifts at the cafe over the weekends for an entire year, allowing her to sleep in. 

When she finally caved Tadashi hugged Aunt Cass tightly and planted a giant kiss on her cheek. She laughed and hugged him back before letting go and resuming her film. Tadashi hurried back to Hiro to deliver the great news. He seemed delighted, and smiled widely when Tadashi relayed that Aunt Cass was taking them to the cabin that she had been looking forward to for the couple of months. “She’s really doing that for us?” he asked in awe and Tadashi confirmed. “Thank-you so much Aunt Cass! I love you!” In his excitement his voice was louder than his normally carefully controlled volume. The elder brother beamed, he hadn’t heard Hiro say he loved Aunt Cass in a long time. Not because he didn’t love her, he knew how important Aunt Cass was. But they just seemed to have an invisible wall between them that separated them from communicating with each other and forging a tangible personal connection.

Before Tadashi could register what was happening and stop her, in a flash Aunt Cass had left the couch and was on her knees hugging Hiro tightly and kissing his face. She had tears in her eyes as she was mumbling something about a Christmas miracle.

Hiro yelled out in his confusion and distress from the shock of suddenly being held without warning. “AUNT CASS!!” Tadashi exclaimed, suddenly standing and causing her to release her youngest nephew who fell silent and backed away from her touch, breathing quickly. He sent Aunt Cass out to retrieve a glass of water. Guiltily she complied, realising what she had done and left the room.

The room was silent except for the television as ‘All You Need is Love’ played from the wedding scene of the movie. Tadashi spent the next ten minutes calming Hiro down. Hiro sat in Tadashi’s lap, head nuzzled against his neck breathing in the familiar scent of safety as he tried to regain normal breathing. Did he coddle Hiro too much? He felt like any time Hiro achieved a new sense of autonomy from learning something new, a piece of reality would always come crashing in.

Aunt Cass finally returned with the water and kneeled down next to them placing the water down. She seemed too afraid to be too close to the boys. “I’m sorry Tadashi.” Tadashi often felt like he was his Aunt’s parent whenever his brother was concerned. It wouldn’t be the first time he had to lecture his aunt in the correct ways to approach his brother. She always had the best intentions but horrible execution. He didn’t want to lecture her too hard tonight though, in case she changed her mind about the cabin.

“It’s okay Aunt Cass… just, please try and be more gentle when you approach him next time. Don’t you remember the simple signs I taught you? What would you ever do if I’m not here?” He took the water from her and helped Hiro drink a couple of gulps. He seemed to calm down a lot after that, his breathing had returned to normal although he was still shaking a little. Tadashi brushed the tears away from his eyes. “I’m sorry Tadashi.” Hiro mumbled.

Tadashi sighed. Why were both Aunt Cass and Hiro saying sorry to him? In fact, he didn’t think Hiro should be saying sorry at all. He co-signed to Hiro as he was speaking to Aunt Cass as he had the same message to both of them. He told them to apologise to each other and to get along. He asked Aunt Cass to come closer and took her hand, showing her the very simple tactile signs of, ‘I’m here’, the finger spelling of ‘Aunt’, and how to say ‘I’m sorry’.

When Tadashi was satisfied that she understood what she was doing he encouraged her to try it on Hiro. She tentatively reached forward and touched Hiro’s hand. Even though Hiro was expecting it he drew his hand away as a reflex, but he verbally apologised to her and brought it back. It was a definite improvement.

“You can hug me again Aunt Cass. I’m sorry about earlier.” She looked at Tadashi for approval and he nodded his encouragement. She leaned forward and hugged her youngest nephew, and after a few moments reached her arm out and dragged Tadashi in for a group hug.

After a moment when they had withdrew she told Tadashi that she had taken so long to get the water because she had just been on a call to her boyfriend. 

“Paul and I decided that we will stay here at home to look after Mochi next weekend. I think you should go with Hiro alone, it’ll be good for you two to get out of the house and after tonight… I just don’t want something like this to happen again.”

“Are you sure Aunt Cass?” Tadashi was taken aback. He knew they had been planning this for months. He guessed the pair just wanted to be alone together and he didn’t particularly want to be in the way of that.

She nodded. “I know you’re only new to your licence but you can take my car up. I don’t want you driving on that scooter of yours for that long of a distance.” She knew his driving was safe even though he had only recently turned 16, and he would never be reckless when Hiro was concerned.

“Thanks Aunt Cass, you really are the best!”

\---

Both of the boys were a little nervous driving to the cabin which would normally be just a three and a half hour drive North of San Fransokyo. It was the longest car ride Hiro had ever been in, and the longest Tadashi had ever driven. It was noticeably hard on Hiro, as he was unable to communicate with his brother while he was driving and the vibrations from the seat under him mixed with the general disorientation he felt from being in a vehicle made it hard for him to concentrate on his e-book without feeling nauseous. 

They pulled over every half hour or so, which lengthened the journey tenfold but was a necessity to clear Hiro’s mind as the stopping and starting from the traffic was not helping. Traffic improved once they hit the highway and helped make up a little bit of time.

It was starting to get dark and there was a noticeable dropping of temperature as they headed further north. “I’m sorry ‘Dashi, maybe this wasn’t my greatest idea.” Hiro admitted after one of their many side of the road pit stops due to nausea and dry-heaving. Hiro’s boots sunk into the snowy sleet as he stepped out to get fresh air. His brother reassured him that it would be the best Christmas weekend ever, and they were actually nearly there! If they made no more stops they should be at the cabin in a little under half an hour.

They had no further incidents although by the time they had found the property Tadashi was seeing the last rays of the sun. They drove on a dirt road through the privately owned tall pine forest for ten minutes, the exact location of the cabin wasn’t on his GPS and he following the holiday home’s makeshift road signs which lead to other secluded cabins all of which were signposted with cute names like ‘The Shell Cottage’ and ‘The Cheery Hangout’. He could tell the bumpiness of the road was upsetting Hiro, but he remained quiet and resilient, his head down and hugging his backpack tightly to his chest.

Tadashi was relieved when he pulled the car into the ‘Sylvan Retreat’. As they rolled to a stop and the engine turned off Hiro stirred next to him. “Are we there yet?” Hiro asked in an uneven voice, raising his face from his bag. Tadashi reached over and touched the back of his hand stroking the simple sign for yes, and asked him to wait for him to unload the car. Hiro nodded and smiled in relief, content that the trip was finally over. Tadashi couldn’t help but smile back even though it was lost on him.

Even though there were other cabins nearby the trees were thick enough to obscure them from their neighbours. The area was very pretty, and it wasn’t for the first time that he wished Hiro could see it with him. Unfortunately there wasn’t much snow on the ground, but the breeze was picking up and he could feel the wind cutting through his sweater which was only fit for a San Fransokyo Winter. He shivered as he retrieved their key from the secure lockbox and unloaded their luggage, which was only one suitcase, Hiro’s backpack and some groceries as they weren’t staying very long. He quickly placed it inside the cabin before returning to retrieve his brother. He reached in and lifted his brother delicately out of the car and hurried him inside away from the cold air.

Once inside together he flicked the light on and looked inside the small wooden room. He was taken aback and nearly dropped Hiro in surprise. The one bedroom cabin was illuminated by a soft warm light and was quite spacious and clearly decorated for a couple’s retreat and was actually quite lavish. A small Christmas tree was set up with other decorations such as wreaths and holly strung up. The King-sized bed had crisp white linen which was laden with rose petals, and there were a number of recently lit tea-light candles on the surrounding floor and furniture. The fireplace had also been lit and he was relieved to find that the room was warm, as he had notified the host at their latest pit stop that they were approaching. There was a small kitchenette to his right so he could fix them up a dinner and from what he could see of the bathroom there was a large stone walled hot tub.

He shouldn’t have been surprised as the lodge was originally booked for Aunt Cass by her boyfriend, but he certainly hadn’t expected the lodge to be so well decorated. After taking a few seconds to take the room in he kicked his boots off before walking forward and placing Hiro gently down on the edge of the bed. The bed was remarkably soft and Hiro relaxed and sunk a few inches into the downey quilt. 

Tadashi removed Hiro’s boots and socks and his outer sweater before letting the boy lie down and relax after his long trip. While Hiro was competent of doing it on his own, he was always a little unsure of what to do when in a new environment as he had a very set routine with when and where to disrobe and place his clothing. “Are we having a shower?” Hiro asked curiously. Tadashi told him ‘Soon, but relax for now.’ It wasn’t a bad idea, Hiro probably felt awful after that car ride and certainly needed a bit of a cleanup, and Tadashi wasn’t feeling all that fresh either.

Tadashi quickly blew out all of the candles which had been lit for them before heading toward the bathroom. Tadashi flicked the light on and like the rest of the cabin it had the same warm lighting which gave off a romantic ambience. He glanced over at the shower but had a feeling Hiro would have trouble adjusting to the shower configuration which had different taps and was a smaller confined space so it would be harder for him to help. His eyes caught the large hot tub, it had plenty of room and he had never used one before so he was curious to try it so he decided to let the tap run as it was a safer plan and didn’t want to cause his brother anymore distress for the day. 

‘I’m running a bath for us.’ He signed to Hiro who sat up when Tadashi touched his hand. He told Hiro to relax again and he would get him in a little bit. Tadashi fished out their change of clothes from the suitcase. Opening up the wardrobe to hang up the spare shirts he discovered the extra blankets and a pair of fluffy bathrobes and slippers. They may as well be comfortable if they were staying in the cabin for a couple of days!

With the hot tub filling up nicely, the older brother prompted Hiro to remove the rest of his clothing who complied and folded his clothes neatly passing them back to his brother. With the room quickly heating up Tadashi followed suit and quickly removed his own clothes. He took Hiro by the hand and guided him to the bathroom.

He helped Hiro in and he sat down, sinking into the warmth of the tub so only his head was poking out. Tadashi reached in over him to fish out a hand and brought it to his mouth to communicate using the Tadoma method. It was something they were still working on improving but Hiro had been responding relatively well to the form of communication. “This is a special bathtub so I’m going to be playing with the settings. Don’t be alarmed, I’m right here.”

Hiro repeated back the words to Tadashi verbatim to prove he understood. He was getting very fast at this, and Tadashi felt that this could take over as their preferred communication method soon. It hadn’t really been used since the days of Helen Keller but after reading about her he had decided to give it a try even though no modern textbooks detailed the method and referred to it as archaic.

Tadashi stepped in and turned on the hot tub. The warm water felt amazing in contrast to the cold air from outside. Immediately jets of water were causing the surface to bubble. Hiro’s hand tightened around Tadashi’s but he seemed calm, and he even cracked a smile and giggled showing off his adorable tooth gap.

“I like it here.” Hiro said endearingly, leaning into his brother and resting his head against his arm. Hiro’s free hand rose out of the water to find his brother’s face. Tadashi resisted the urge to help him, as it was important for Hiro to learn how to find the position without assistance.

“It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s the first time I’ve used a jacuzzi too but it feels quite relaxing.” Tadashi said finally when he felt Hiro’s fingers in the correct position.

Hiro shook his head. “No, not just the bath… but this is nice too. But I mean I really like this place ‘Dashi. It smells nice and everything is so soft. It’s warm and I love the smell of the fireplace. And were there candles burning before? It smelt like vanilla… and there was the smell of roses on the bed. Even outside the air felt so fresh even though it was freezing. Was there snow? Can you tell me what it’s like here?”

Tadashi settled in and told Hiro in detail everything he saw. Hiro patiently listened, nodding and smiling and occasionally asking questions for clarification.

“So we’re truly alone then? It’s just you and me?” Hiro asked for confirmation.

“Yes Hiro, it’s just you and me.” Why was his heart suddenly beating faster? It had happened occasionally around Hiro and was increasingly occurring tonight. He took that as a sign to reduce the temperature a little in the hot tub.

“Good.” Hiro said matter of factly. “I think it should always be like this. I don’t like sharing you.” Hiro was often very possessive of Tadashi and didn’t like it when he had other commitments. It had always been that way.

Tadashi had a fleeting flashback from what must have been before Hiro lost his sight but after their parents had passed. “I’m going to be your wife.” Young Hiro had declared matter of factly while they were watching a movie with Aunt Cass. They both had only laughed at it the time and neither had bothered to correct him, Tadashi had even played along and they played house together. In a way, they had been playing house ever since.

Tadashi couldn’t imagine himself bringing another person into their lives. For the past couple of years the boys his age had started dating and seemed to talk about nothing else aside for sports and girls, he found that he didn’t have much interest. Last year in particular he had been teased for being gay more than once but he was largely immune to bullying and dismissed the claims after rejecting a couple of invitations to the school dance. He had seriously considered the notion that he was homosexual, but he honestly just felt that he had no time to pursue relationships when he was so busy between academics and looking after his brother.

It was always about Hiro. Hiro was rarely not on Tadashi’s mind. Both of the brothers were thrilled when Hiro had finally graduated from elementary school and joined Tadashi’s high school, and while they didn’t share any of the same classes from being in different grades, the extra time they could spend together during the lunch breaks did wonders for Hiro’s education and both of their happiness. Occasionally Tadashi would have a free block and could join Hiro and live transcribe the lessons for him. Tadashi was sad that he only had one year left with Hiro like this before he had to graduate.

“‘Dashi?” Hiro’s voice piped up, breaking through his reverie. They had been soaking in the tub for a while and their fingers had gotten wrinkly from being in the water too long.

“Sorry Hiro, I zoned out. Let me get you all cleaned up and I’ll start on dinner.” As he washed Hiro he couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t just a little kid anymore. If he didn’t watch out he would be getting too large to lift easily. Tadashi decided that he would start building some muscle if he could find the time. He had taken to studying neurology and ophthalmology in his free time. Even though the specialists said nothing could be done, Tadashi hadn’t yet given up hope.

Finished with their bath, the brothers adorned the white fluffy robes and slippers. Tadashi smiled to himself when he noticed that the back of the robes were embroidered with a ‘Hers’ and ‘His’. It was a fact that he could omit from telling Hiro.

“Have a nap while I take care of dinner.” He told Hiro before lifting him onto the bed and tucking him in. It was extremely toasty in there now and Hiro wriggled out of his robe, letting it fall to the ground opting to rest nude under the warm doona. Tadashi smiled down at his resting form for a moment before sifting through the groceries. The wind was starting to howl outside, shaking the windows as he said to himself, “I think it should always be like this. I don’t like sharing you.” Repeating his brother’s words.

\---

Hiro woke up from his nap to the smell of a rich aroma which must have been his brother’s cooking. Aunt Cass did the majority of the cooking at home, so it was a nice treat to have a meal made by Tadashi. He sat himself up and inhaled in the scent, it smelt like some sort of hearty broth. He can’t have been asleep for long, but with the help of the relaxing hot tub and the softness of the bed he felt fully refreshed. He dreaded the trip back but at least they had another night here.

The smell of the food got closer and was followed by a gentle hand on his shoulder from Tadashi letting him know he was there. “Dinner smells great!” Hiro said brightly, and was rewarded with the weight of his brother sitting next to him. Hiro’s hand started at Tadashi’s sternum and found its way up until he reached his mouth. He was getting much better at the Tadoma method, and he loved feeling his brother talk. It was like having a real conversation.

He felt the words forming on his brother’s mouth. “It’s hot, do you want me to help you?” Hiro nodded, and even though he usually didn’t need to be spoonfed, he was quite hungry and it was a lot faster this way. Tadashi must have been blowing on the spoon as he felt a brief wind on his shoulder, and then a small tap on his hand urging him to open his mouth. It was still hot but not unbearingly so. The thick broth contained beef, carrots and leek. “It’s delicious ‘Dashi!’ he commented, knowing what Tadashi was wondering without having to be asked.

When he had finished the bowl Hiro sighed dramatically, and laid back to relax on the bed. He felt so full and with the fireplace burning and the warm food inside him. His eyes felt heavy, and he could feel himself drifting off to sleep again. He felt Tadashi standing up, but Hiro made a grab for his brother. He missed his wrist but grabbed a part of of his robes. 

“Stay.” Hiro said softly, and he felt that Tadashi was considering it. After a moment he felt his brother lie down behind him. He rolled over to meet him face to face and reached forward to wrap his arms around Tadashi’s neck. He pulled himself towards him and closed the gap. They were touching forehead to forehead and he could feel his brother’s hot breath in their proximity. It had been a while since they had slept in the same bed, although he did often sleep with Tadashi if he got woken up by a nightmare. He missed this.

He felt the breathing move unevenly, the movement of the air reminded him of when he could feel Tadashi talking, but without his fingers on his face he couldn’t work out what was said. Curious, but tired, Hiro whispered a drowsy ‘I love you’ before he drifted off to sleep in his brother’s arms.

\---

“I love you, Hiro.” Tadashi muttered, even though there was no way for him to hear it. With Hiro nestled closely in his arms, he was reminded once again that there would never be anyone else for him quite like Hiro. He felt his body reacting to the proximity with Hiro and he guiltily tried to inch himself away from the embrace but he was stopped in his tracks.

“I love you.” Hiro said quietly, as if in reply to his own words and feelings. Hiro’s breathing soon after becoming heavier and longer as he fell into sleep. Tadashi’s heart was pumping fast, and he was confused and ashamed by his erection. Yet he decided to stay still, not wanting to disturb his brother. After about ten minutes when Hiro had well and truly drifted off, and he had also settled down, he carefully unwrapped Hiro’s hands and inched himself away and from the bed.

He was sweating profusely, with his mind running a hundred miles a second racing for a valid explanation. The room was also felt very hot and he felt like doing something illogical to clear his mind. He opened the door and stepped outside and the difference was immediately apparent. The howling wind brought with it a blizzard, and he felt unprepared standing outside in his bathrobe and slippers.

Still, he had yet to see snow like this and the harsh, cutting air felt exactly like what he needed right now. He knew he loved his brother, but was he in love with his brother? He went through the possibilities. It could have been just a coincidence that he had an erection at that point of time. But It’s not the first time it’s happened. The first few times he had put it down to just a coincidence, like when he just happened to think of Hiro in class, or in the shower. Perhaps just an uncontrollable urge from hormonal imbalances and he was always thinking about Hiro, so of course there was a higher chance of him accidentally getting an erection at one of those times, right?

He shivered, drawing his bathrobe closed tighter. He could barely see the pinpricks of light from the next house through the blizzard and trees. Who was he kidding? He knew it would always be just him and Hiro and the only person he was trying to fool was himself. He took solace in that whatever perverted feelings he had for his brother hadn’t yet manifested in thoughts or actions. It was likely only to be a phase. He could happily have a platonic relationship with his brother forever. Everything was fine as long as he didn’t act on it.

Feeling calmer, he went back inside and let the warmth wash over him. He couldn’t have been outside longer than five minutes, but he could physically feel his face and fingers thawing. Hopefully the storm would calm down so he could take Hiro outside in the morning, he was sure he’d love to experience snow.

Tadashi, quite tired himself from all the driving, quickly cleaned the dishes and checked on the dying embers before joining in on sleeping next to Hiro, decidingly back turned to him and as far away as possible.

\---

“‘Dashi, ‘Dashi! Merry Christmas! It’s snowing outside!” Hiro exclaimed, excitedly waking him up. Tadashi sat up and surveyed the room. He didn’t recognise it but it felt like they lived there. “Come on, slowpoke!” Hiro said, pulling him out of bed and towards the door. Had Hiro always been this tall? Hiro was standing only a little shorter than he was, wearing their father’s old San Fransokyo baseball cap, a t-shirt and some baggy shorts.

Look, it’s mistletoe. Hiro said, stopping just under the front door. He leant up and gave him a kiss, directly on the lips but it was sweet and quick. Being dragged outside they were somewhere in San Fransokyo, just outside of the Lucky Cat Cafe. It was barely recognisable covered in a thick layer of snow, and even more snow was falling from the sky. A heavy snowball clocked him squarely in the jaw, and he barely ducked the next snowball thrown is way.

“Hey!” He shouted after Hiro, who was preparing more ammo crouched behind a lamp post. Tadashi quickly ducked down and gathered some snow from the ground, and waited for Hiro to stand up before launching. He got his revenge, hitting Hiro in the shoulder. They played for a while, chasing each other down the street. As Hiro raced ahead, the snow seemed to fall heavier.

He yelled out Hiro’s name but he didn’t turn around and soon he was lost to the storm. He couldn’t even hear his own voice as he screamed out for his brother, and the wind and snow obscured his vision and forced his run to a trudge.

“You’re late!” Said Aunt Cass, pulling him out of the storm. Suddenly they were in a chapel, Aunt Cass was wearing a gorgeous deep blue gown. Tadashi looked around, there was a large faceless crowd watching them. Where was Hiro? Looking down he noticed Tadashi was wearing a suit. How could he forget it was his wedding day? The large ornate doors opened and everyone stood to attention and turned around to face his bride. 

His bride wore a long white gown, simple and sleek save for the ruffles and embellishments which added volume to the top half of the dress drawing his eyes up and showing off gorgeous little shoulders and arms. His bride’s face was hidden behind a veil, but even before they reached the podium Tadashi knew who it was.

Their vows were exchanged as prompted by a priest. He couldn’t hear his bride speaking, it was like a low murmur. “You may now kiss the bride.” He heard clearly, and he lifted the veil as if in slow motion, excited to discover the identity of his wife but also scared of who he would find.  
He heard a sharp gasp from Aunt Cass who looked shocked, and the audience rumbled in a disgruntled murmur. He looked at them, his heart sinking. He wanted to run, but the hand he was holding… no, it was Hiro who was holding him tightened, keeping him in the same spot. The front row was no longer faceless, but filled with people who knew from school and teachers, all whispering disapproving words… and in the centre their parents. They hadn’t aged at all, but the look of betrayal on their faces was nothing he had ever saw in real life. He locked eyes with his father, “You were meant to protect him.” He said, not with venom but with sorrow.

“Tadashi, look at me.” Hiro’s voice broke through the murmuring, and his hand touched his cheek making Tadashi face only him. It was only now that Tadashi realised he was in a dream. Hiro’s voice was much too clear, and his eyes were open, shining with recognition and affection. “I love you, Tadashi Hamada. Let me come to you.” And Hiro closed the short gap between them with a kiss.

\---

Tadashi felt a weight straddled on top of him, and a tugging on his robes. “‘Dashi, ‘Dashi! Merry Christmas! Is it snowing?” Asked Hiro, with a familiar cadence. Tadashi immediately opened his eyes, he just had the strangest dream and now the feeling of deja vu was added to the mix. Hiro was sitting naked on top of his stomach, his eyes were closed as usual. Tadashi sat up and glanced outside, it was indeed snowing. Hiro’s legs were locked around his waist, and Tadashi quickly adjusted himself so that his morning glory was well hidden safely under the blankets, the memory of the older Hiro in his dreams still vivid in his mind’s eye.

“Merry Christmas, Hiro.” And he promised to himself that he would somehow get Hiro’s vision back at all costs, just so he can see the look of adoration the Hiro in his dreams gave him. If Hiro regained his senses, Tadashi was certain that they would never be as close as they were now, but it would be worth it.


	10. Woman Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! This chapter has actually been written for a long time but I haven't posted it (woops!) 
> 
> I have been working on this fanfic but been writing a lot of chapters out of order so I haven't been able to post. It is coming together though so I hope I still have some patient readers left!

Tadashi Hamada was unlike any other guy Gogo had ever met, and she absolutely hated that she had feelings for him. She made a point to have a fuck-off attitude due to too many douchebags in the past, and it had taken her the better half of their first year at SFIT before she finally opened up to the other students in her lab for friendship. Tadashi wasn’t the usual guy that she would crush on. Sure, he was attractive and clearly took good care of himself, but the guy was practically a saint. No one could be that perfect.

He was clearly inexperienced. While neither of them brought up the date the following Monday she could feel his nervous furtive glances in her direction when he thought she wasn’t looking. Well, Aunt Cass had mentioned he had never had a girlfriend before. She found that hard to believe.

For the first half of the week Gogo treated him with the same indifference that she always had. This was easy, Gogo had been very busy that week. Hiro’s suggestion had brought her back to the drawing board in terms of design. Professor Callaghan almost had a heart attack when he saw her early Monday morning throwing out the bike frame before the other students came in. She had to explain to him that there was a problem with the weight distribution in the skeleton and she would have to completely redesign the body to achieve optimal speed.

Outside of school related work, Tadashi and Gogo hadn’t talked much at all, and she sure as hell had too much pride to bring something up. She knew her friends were watching them whenever they casually interacted, but none of them were brave enough to ask about the date while Gogo was in the room for fear of her wrath.

That was until the incident on Friday, by which point the rest of the gang had given up and assumed the date went badly. Gogo swore loudly, a small lapse in concentration as she snuck a glance over at Tadashi who was doing something over at Honey Lemon’s station distracted her. The powerful rotary she was using had sufficiently sliced through her protective glove. She dropped the dremel, ripped the glove off and instinctively began sucking at her finger, she could taste blood. She doubted it was a serious injury, but it was annoying all the same.

Irritating her further, Tadashi appeared by her side as if summoned. It’s like he knew it was his fault that she had slipped up. He quickly turned the power off at the wall as cordless tool was still humming aggressively on the ground. Gogo turned crimson from a combination of rage and embarrassment as she noticed the other students had turned to watch the scene.

“Gogo, let me see your finger.” She turned her eyes back to Tadashi who had a dopey look of concern on his face. “Wasabi, can you get me the first aid kit?”

“Already on it.” Wasabi responded, bringing over the first aid kit over and opening it on the bench. Gogo still had not relinquished her finger from her mouth. She didn’t need his help, she told herself defiantly despite the rush of blood flowing from her finger. She ran her tongue over the wound, and with a grimace realised that it was quite a deep cut. Fine.

Tadashi asked her again, using the same measured voice that made him seem completely in control of the situation. He took her left hand carefully and looked at her index finger. It seemed like a clean diagonal cut, about 1cm wide and had a decent depth. The deep red blood oozed out slowly, and to her relief Tadashi placed a clean bandage on the wound and applied a firm pressure. Wasabi and Honey Lemon were hanging around asking questions in panicked voices and trying to help.

“She’ll be fine, you can go back to your work.” Tadashi told them, to Gogo’s satisfaction. She really didn’t want them making a scene.

“GO.” She urged them in an angry follow up as they loitered uncertainty.

Tadashi pulled up her stool and asked her to sit. She decided to cooperate. As the initial shock was wearing off she could feel her finger throbbing heavily. “So what’s the diagnosis, doc?” She asked him sarcastically. He was still holding her hand and applying pressure gently, slightly raised now that she was sitting.

“Honestly Gogo, it does look rather deep. You have to be more careful. I’ll check it in about 10 minutes to see if the bleeding has stopped, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you need stitches.” He said calmly.

Her face paled. She was hoping for him to laugh and joke around and say ‘Looks like it’ll need to be cut off!’, she wasn’t expecting a serious answer. She should have known better though, she wasn’t entirely sure he knew what a joke was. Despite her tough exterior, there were a few things Gogo didn’t like, and hospitals, blood and needles were three of them. Actually, she didn’t mind blood and needles when it came to other people, it just bothered her when it was her own.

“You can’t be serious.” She replied skeptically. “Besides, it’ll take forever to be seen at the hospital and I don’t have private health insurance.” Translation, she was a poor student and if she wanted to pay rent that week she sure as hell wasn’t going to see a doctor.

“Don’t worry, that’s just the worst case scenario! You’ll be fine.” Tadashi tried to reassure her.

“How’s Hiro going?” Gogo asked, trying to take her mind off of her aching finger. They talked about him for a few minutes, and Gogo couldn’t help but notice how much Tadashi’s face lit up when he spoke about his brother. It was really endearing.

It was only about five minutes in when Tadashi removed the pressure from her finger. She was about to mention that it was a bit early, but the sight of her finger continuing to bleed at the same rate made her feel suddenly dizzy and the bandage must have soaked through for Tadashi to notice.

He reapplied a fresh bandage without skipping a beat and told her that she needed to go to the hospital to get it looked at. He suggested for Wasabi to drive her since he only had his scooter.

“I’d rather not, Hamada. Besides, if Wasabi is taking me I’ll die of old age before I get there. Just bandage it up properly and be done with it.” She retorted, with less venom than she could usually muster. He sighed in exasperation.

“Fine, but at least let me have a proper look at it. Let’s go into my lab for privacy.” He asked her to hold the bandage herself while he grabbed the first aid kit and lead her out of the workroom. Even though she kept her eyes straight at the back of Tadashi’s head, she could still feel everyone watching them leave.

They made a quick bypass to the bathroom where he asked her to give the wound a wash. She made a point not to look too closely at her finger. 

It was the first time she had been in Tadashi’s lab. The centre of the room was mostly bare, but one wall was lined with brain and eye charts which were marked with his own notes. The other side of the room had his computer setup with a pile of books and a few benches laden with what appeared to be medical equipment and other odd devices where she was unsure of the functions. Conveniently he even had an examination chair in a corner which he pulled out more into the centre of the room and asked her to sit down.

He put on some latex gloves from the first aid kid and proceeded to examine her finger in silence. She watched him at work curiously. He certainly seemed to know what he was doing but she reminded him of a TV soap-opera doctor, definitely far too young and good looking to have a medical degree.

 

He grabbed a scanning device which she recognised as a hand-held x-ray machine. He was definitely taking this far too seriously. Tadashi must have noticed her scepticism because he explained to her as he scanned.

“A broken finger tip is very common, I just want to make sure.” The scan was instantly received on his computer. “So would you like the good news or the bad news?” He asked her after review.

That didn’t sound good. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is you’re going to need stitches. The cut is quite deep and is directly over your joint.” She hated how he could deliver that so calmly.

“Great! What’s the good news!” She asked with fake cheerfulness.

“The good news is your bone isn’t fractured and the wound is clean, but you’re still going to need to go to the hospital.” 

“Tadashi, I really don’t think I need to go to the hospital. Can’t you just bandage it up for me?” She dropped the act a little, a note of panic entering her voice.

“You’re seriously not going to go, are you?” He emitted a large sigh as she nodded. “Fine. But you’re still going to need stitches.” He rebandaged her finger in silence and when satisfied asked her to wait there. He removed the gloves and left the room with long strides. What was his deal?

He wasn’t gone for long, but when he returned it was with a handful of items she didn’t want to see which must have been taken from the medical section. Was he seriously planning on stitching her up himself? Who did he think he was?

“Relax, I’ve done this before.” He told her, removing the bandage. She decided to woman up and took a good look at her finger to see just how bad it was. Tadashi was right, it was over a joint and it was still bleeding freely. She tried bending the digit a little and the small movement pulled at the edges of the wound and revealed her finger’s fat and joint structures. She looked away quickly. That was enough.

“What do you mean you’ve done this before?” She asked, trying to keep the conversation moving to distract herself.

“With Hiro.” He replied while applying antiseptic to her finger. “He’s had a few injuries especially when he was younger and he’s afraid of people he doesn’t know touching him so it’s only natural that I had to learn some basic skills.”

She hissed as the numbing needle was injected into her finger mid-sentence. He could have at least warned her, she didn’t even see it coming.

“Hamada, what are you doing tonight?” She made a point to look at him directly in the face, rather than watching what his hands were doing to her finger. “Do you want to watch a movie or something tonight?” He didn’t react with so much as a blush.

“I’m not sure if I can. Hiro’s expecting me home.” She was beginning to see why he hadn’t had a girlfriend before. He already had a full-time commitment to his brother. It was commendable, but surely Hiro would be alright for one night alone.

“What if I come over for a bit? I’m sure your Aunt Cass won’t mind, and I have to thank Hiro for the suggestions he gave me the other day.” She was met with silence, as Tadashi seemed to be focusing hard on his task. It was probably best if she didn’t distract him.

“Alright, you’re done.” She sighed in relief and looked down at her finger. He had already cleaned up the blood for her, and it looked surprisingly neat for someone who wasn’t a professional. He had also taped her index finger to her middle finger, presumably so she wouldn’t move it too much.

“I used dissolvable stitches so you won’t have to worry about getting them removed. You can take the tape off in a couple of days, it’s just so you don’t upset the joint too early. You’re good to go!” He said, pleased with his work.

“Thanks doc, now let’s go back to your house so you can say hi to Hiro for a bit before we go out. I want to watch The Incredibles 3 tonight.” She said brightly.

“I’m sorry Gogo, I really can’t. And I don’t think Hiro would like me leaving him alone.”

She was ready for him to object. “He’ll be fine! You worry too much.”

“No Gogo, I really shouldn’t. I promised to help Hiro with some work tonight.” He replied adamantly, provoking her a little.

“You’ve got all weekend for that. Besides, you wouldn’t want the medical department to find out why they’re missing some syringes, do you? I’m sure they’ll be mighty interested to find out you’ve been stitching people up on school grounds.”

He sighed, resigned to the fact that she wasn’t going to drop it. “Okay, fine. But only because it’s unsafe for you to drive yourself at the moment so I should take you home.”

\---

The first thing she noticed was that the siblings room was very neat and structured. Wasabi would have been impressed. There was an expansive bookcase lining one entire wall of the room with an extensive medical range of neuropathy, auditory and ophthalmology books. The bottom two rows had huge books in large binders. Tadashi had followed her line of vision and explained to her that they were braille books, but were largely outdated due to technology.

Hiro himself was sitting at a desk, his fingers travelling over a refreshable braille screen. Tadashi explained that he had an extra week of leave from school to catch up with his studies. They walked over to him together, it felt strange approaching someone who didn’t know that you were there, it felt like she was sneaking up on him.

“‘Whoa...“ She exclaimed in admiration when she got into view of what Hiro was working on. He seemed to be typing up some serious coding, and it was a little confounding that a 14 year old kid who couldn’t even see could be processing code at such a scale. It was definitely more advanced that what she had been taught in her freshman year.

“What is he coding?” She asked, leaning forward and peering at the screen. She was unfamiliar with the interface but it appeared to be a modified software for C#. If she had to fathom a guess from the snapshot she could see, it looked like it had something to do with heat sensors. Gogo’s placed her hand on the table as she leaned forward. The change in weight on the desk caused Hiro to pause, startled by the vibration.

“‘Dashi?” Hiro questioned, looking in the direction of Gogo. His hand reached out and touched hers with a startling precision. He immediately recoiled, realising it wasn’t Tadashi’s hand at all. Tadashi quickly intervened, and grabbed both of Hiro’s palms, quickly calming him down. He was taking deep breaths, in what she recognised as the start of a panic attack.

“Sorry, he wasn’t expecting someone else to be here.” He explained to her while he was using the tactile method on Hiro’s fingers to explain the situation. Hiro promptly responded to Tadashi in what sounded like disjointed Japanese, but she had limited understanding of the language. She decided to let the boys talk it out and sat herself on one of the beds, presumably Hiro’s from the lack of personal touches.

Curiously, the sheets were folded very neatly and gave her the distinct impression that it hadn’t been slept in for a while and the bedside table had a layer of settled dust. Never one to bite her tongue, she asked Tadashi outright when the conversation with Hiro seemed to have finally subsided. “So does Hiro sleep in your bed or something?”

“Oh… yes. He gets nightmares.” He explained, red in the face and looking rather alarmed. “He finds it comforting waking up with someone he trusts.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at him, what did he think she was insinuating? “Chill. I get it, I’d feel comforted if I woke up in your arms too.” He laughed a little nervously. His naivety was cute. “Anyway, did you tell Hiro that you’re going out for the movie?”

“Yes I did. I really can’t come out, I need to stay home with him.” He said adamantly.

“Bring him with you then. He’ll be fine, it’s just a couple of hours.” Besides, what Hiro couldn’t see couldn’t hurt him and she was planning on having just a bit of fun with Tadashi.

\---

Tadashi found himself in a situation of his own making.

The ticket man looked at them peculiarly as Tadashi walked in with Gogo on one arm and Hiro on the other wearing his blackout sunglasses. He had opted to leave his cane at home but was still clearly vision impaired. The gentleman was kind enough to only charge him for two tickets, “Couldn’t find someone to babysit for you?” the old man had asked jokingly. 

The theatre was only moderately packed, but they took seats towards the back and off to the side with Tadashi placed in the middle. The trailers had already started so the movie must have been beginning soon. He could barely remember the last time he had been to a movie theatre, but he was certain it wasn’t as uncomfortable as he felt right now.

Gogo was definitely attracted to him. For the majority of the week he thought he was in the clear because she had ignored him, but all of a sudden she was asking him out on a date and hanging onto his arm and saying suggestive comments which he attempted to laugh off.

“I told you so.” Hiro had told him in Japanese when Tadashi had explained the situation to him back at the house. “Just tell her you’re not that interested in her, it’s only going to get worse.” He told Hiro that it wasn’t that easy, and Hiro simply told him that he was being an idiot. “I’ll even do it for you if you want.” He followed up nonchalantly. Easy for him to say.

Gogo interrupted Tadashi’s thoughts by leaning over and whispering over to Tadashi as the intro for the film started playing, “I can’t believe Incredibles 3 is finally out! It’s been forever since the second film!”

Tadashi was surprised that Gogo had taken him to watch a cartoon. He had expected an action or a horror film. “I haven’t seen the first two.” He admitted, whispering back. She looked at him shocked for a moment, but averted her eyes back to the screen.

He felt a tugging on his other arm as Hiro tried to get his attention. Tadashi had warned him that they were going to a cinema and he would have to be quiet for a couple of hours. He realised that Hiro was reaching for his hands to continue their earlier conversation. Hiro tried to tactile sign to Tadashi, as he didn’t trust himself to whisper. He had to ask Hiro to slow down as he wasn’t as used to the process in reverse.

‘Let me know if she tries anything on you.’ Hiro communicated to him discreetly. ‘I’ve read that movies are common first dates because the darkness of the theatre provides the opportunity to discreetly make a move.’ Fortunately Gogo looked like she was watching the movie quite intently for now, but he did enjoy Hiro’s jealousy. ‘I’m going to have a nap. Let me know if something exciting happens.’

Tadashi realised that the armrest was adjustable and lifted it up to let Hiro get comfortable. He hugged Tadashi’s arm and used it as a pillow while he rested. Tadashi finally turned his attention to the film for the first time. There were animated superheroes on the screen battling a giant robot. He decided to try and enjoy himself.

\---

Tadashi surprisingly got through the entire movie unscathed, perhaps through a combination of the movie tapping into Gogo’s nostalgia and Hiro making it hard for her to make a move as he had readjusted himself to sleep on his lap.

“So, what did you think of it?” Gogo asked him when they got into Aunt Cass’ car. He had placed and strapped in the sleeping Hiro in the back seat.

“It was pretty entertaining! I’ll have to go back and watch the first two to really appreciate it but it was certainly enjoyable. ”

They chatted about the movie on the way back, interfered by an occasional direction to get to Gogo’s house.

“Thanks for the lift… and for taking care of my finger.” She said as they rolled up in front of her apartment.

“It wasn’t a problem at all! Have a good night Gogo.”

She paused and looked at him, leaning in a little. It seemed like she was expecting a kiss. After a short, but awkward moment she broke the silence, “Um… the festival is coming up soon. The rest of the gang is going but we haven’t asked you yet because we figured you’d say no because of Hiro. But I think you should come, Hiro too.”

“Oh… I’m not sure if we can. It’s a little too crowded.”

“Just… think about it. Have a good night, Tadashi.”


	11. The Matchmaker

The city was humming with the buzz of preparation for the Spring Festival. San Fransokyo was a hot pot of people from different backgrounds, and what was once a traditional Japanese festival had developed into a celebration of all cultures and was easily the biggest event of the year. It had been many years since the brothers had attended the festival, Hiro was probably too young to even have remembered going.

His classmates were excited, talking about what they were going to wear. Fred had volunteered to mascot the SFIT stall, which was always a big attraction showcasing innovative entertainment. Last year they had presented a virtual reality fireworks display that let you soar high above the city of San-Fransokyo. None of the team had volunteered to work on this year’s installment, too busy with their own work, so it would be a surprise.

“Have you considered going to the Spring Festival yet?” Asked Gogo, turning on Tadashi. Tadashi had been quietly working on his laptop while the others milled around, chatting excitedly. It wasn’t unusual for Tadashi to be disconnected from the group. He felt lucky to have them as friends.

“Oh… yeah, about that, I don’t think I’ll be going.” Tadashi admitted, not even looking up from his laptop “I haven’t been since I was about eight, not since Hiro...” He trailed off, nearly all of his conversations turned to Hiro at some point. Fred had even suggested they play a drinking game every time Tadashi said the word ‘Hiro’’, but was shut down by his academically inclined peers. “Sorry, I’m doing it again.” He said apologetically, his cheeks turning pink and his hands hovering over his keyboard.

Fred stood up and slammed his hand against the laptop, slamming it shut and startling everyone. “I have a great idea!” He proclaimed. Everyone responded with a cautionary ‘what?’. He usually had rather unconventional ideas. “We ALL want to meet Hiro right? Why don’t you bring him along to the festival too?”

“That’s really not the best idea...” Tadashi responded, trying to qualm Fred’s enthusiasm. Hiro did not do very well in crowds, and he didn’t want to overload him with meeting everyone at once. Not only were crowds a problem, Hiro had been very hands-on lately. Hiro may have been well behaved on their cinema expedition, but there had been some close calls downstairs with Aunt Cass in full-view. Tadashi had even resorted to eating his meals separately from the table using the excuse that he had too much to study.

The love that Hiro held for Tadashi was extremely dangerous and threatened to consume him. It became Hiro’s sole passion, and with nothing else to distract him from his obsession, Tadashi was afraid that their relationship was becoming too visible, and the treasured moments that they once shared would soon be revealed to the world. He didn’t know what either of them would do without the other and being discovered was a terrifying thought, causing him to be constantly on edge.

Gogo, the only other person at the table who had met Hiro interjected, eyes narrowed. “You coddle him too much Tadashi. He was absolutely fine the other day, and he’ll have us to protect him so he doesn’t have to come into contact with strangers.”

“That’s right Tadashi! We really want to meet him, you talk so much about him!” Honey Lemon said energetically, “He sounds incredible Tadashi, and he really helped Gogo out. Her bike is faster than ever! You can’t just keep such a genius to yourself!”

Wasabi, speaking logically as always could see why Tadashi had some reserve in bringing Hiro to the festival. “Come on guys, Tadashi knows his brother the best. Maybe we should just meet him in a less hectic environment.”

 

Tadashi thanked Wasabi and told the gang that he would consider it. Honey Lemon had already assumed the answer as a yes and began making plans. 

Gogo leaned in and whispered, “Loosen up, Hamada. The kid is fourteen. What are you so afraid of?”

She giggled at Tadashi’s flushed expression, forever mistaking his wandering thoughts. 

\---

Much to Tadashi’s surprise, Aunt Cass was thrilled about the idea of Tadashi bringing Hiro to the festival. He had expected her to have the same concerns that he had.

Aunt Cass herself had gone to the main night of the festival for most of the recent years leaving Tadashi to look after his brother. He didn’t mind, and Aunt Cass usually found herself a date to attend the festival with. She seemed delighted to finally attend the festival with her family and meet the rest of his friends.

“Hiro, do you remember going to the Spring Festival? ” Tadashi asked Hiro when they had settled upstairs in front of his work station. Hiro had immediately sat on Tadashi’s lap, facing so his body was turned toward his brother. He didn’t expect Hiro to remember that far back, but Tadashi remembered the night vividly. It was the last time they had spent as a proper family, he felt with a pang.

Hiro paused in thought. “Was it called Sakura Matsuri?” He asked, sounding the words out slowly. It was the former name of the festival before they simplified it to just the Spring Festival to be more inclusive. “Yes, I remember the fireworks. And I read that our school does a stall for it every year.” He said, smiling. “Why do you ask?”

Tadashi explained that the event was coming up soon and that his classmates had invited them to come out. He added that they had been wanting to meet him.

“Your friends invited you? Or Gogo did? You really need to cut things off with her before you’re in too deep.” He warned again. Tadashi shifted nervously, Hiro was oddly perceptive for someone with limited sensory information. “If she’s going I’m coming with you.”

“Are you sure? It’ll be extremely crowded and it won’t be a safe environment.” Tadashi responded, pointedly ignoring the quip about Gogo. He was going to put her down gently, he just didn’t know how without making things awkward with the rest of the group. He had ostracized himself in high school, but this was different. He really needed these guys.

“I’ll be safe if I’m with you.” Hiro said adamantly. “Besides, I need to protect you from Gogo.”

Tadashi laughed, “I don’t need protecting, Hiro.” He couldn’t imagine what Hiro had in mind to protect him, but he had to admit he enjoyed the jealousy.

“‘Dashi, we both know you’re just hoping the problem will go away. It’s the same thing with you and I. Do you think I haven’t noticed you’ve been trying to push me away? But I can tell it’s half-hearted because you always give in. You need to actually tell Gogo you’re not interested in her. You’ve rejected people before with no problem. Why is it such a big issue now? Do you have feelings for her too?” Hiro sounded completely serious. “Because if you do, just tell me. It’s not too late for you to live a normal life.”

Tadashi hesitated for a moment. Hiro was giving him a chance to put things back in its place. But he paused and looked at Hiro’s sweet face, his eyes closed as usual, but he still had his beautiful full lashes. His eyebrows were slightly furrowed in determination. He searched his heart, which was laced with the guilt of being unable to imagine being with anyone else except Hiro. Tadashi exhaled, realising he was holding his breath. Tadashi decided to answer by kissing Hiro on the mouth. A free hand found the back of his head, his fingers lacing through the messy black locks. Normally this would be more than enough to appease any quarrel, especially because he had been suppressing any form of initiation, so he was surprised when Hiro didn’t respond back to the kiss and pulled away.

He knew what Hiro wanted, and he sighed, resigned that Hiro was right. Tadashi promised he would tell Gogo he wasn't interested the next time he saw her.

He was rewarded by a bright smile with his cute grin. In exchange Hiro promised to be less touchy when they were outside the bedroom.

“You know, I was only doing it to punish you for being untruthful. Lying is bad, remember?” Hiro said, pointing out one of the earliest lessons Tadashi had taught him when he was a kid.

 

Some weight off of his shoulders had been melted away now that he had set a date to set things straight with Gogo. He decided to reward both of them by giving in to some of his urges and reinitiated the kiss which Hiro hungrilly accepted. Tadashi shivered as Hiro’s fingers crept under his shirt, a thumb found his nipple and began circling it. Hiro’s other hand had snaked to the small of his back, his fingers digging in to pull him closer.

Tadashi moaned into Hiro, his back arching at the sensation of Hiro now pinching his nipple, while his nails clawed into his back. He had resigned to Hiro’s somewhat heavy handed approach, coming to appreciate the small marks often left on his body. Hiro was usually careful and gentle when handling most things, afraid of breaking something he couldn’t see, but when it came to Tadashi’s body he wasn’t afraid to manhandle him with a hungry need.

He was unable to remain seated for much longer, his cock aching against his pants and feeling Hiro against him. he gave warning to Hiro that he was going to be lifted up. Hiro was light, and he easily maneuvered him to their bed. He placed Hiro gently down first, and hovered above him. Hiro used the opportunity to wriggle out of his shirt, and Tadashi followed suit.

 

Tadashi lowered himself gently, making sure not to crush the boy and began kissing him once again. He was rewarded by Hiro moaning, his hips bucking against Tadashi’s groin, his legs opening so Tadashi could lay between them. Tadashi could feel Hiro’s arms pulling him down, the boy not caring about the extra weight, just needing to feel the closeness. Tadashi groaned, his cock aching to break free as he felt Hiro’s own against him. He had a primeval urge to remove both of their pants so their bodies could touch.

 

He moaned again as Hiro broke the kiss and tried to reposition himself, his hips bucking underneath him. He suddenly realised that Hiro was trying to get on top, which made Tadashi laugh, but he humoured the boy and rolled them over. At least he wasn’t at fear of crushing him this way.

Almost immediately Hiro’s hands searched for Tadashi’s pants, fumbling at his belt. Hiro growled in frustration when Tadashi grabbed his hands to pull him away. Both of Hiro’s wrists fit into one hand, which Tadashi rose gently above his head to the headboard, effectively pulling Hiro flat on top of him. Tadashi released him, satisfied that he got the message not to fiddle below the waist again. As much as Tadashi wanted to, deafblind or not, Hiro was still only a kid.

Not one to be deterred, Hiro planted a peck on Tadashi’s cheek, and began trailing cute pecks down his face and neck. The hot breath on his neck left goosebumps in its wake, but the gentleness didn’t last long. With an animalistic growl, Hiro bit into Tadashi’s neck, hard. The older boy yelled at the sudden pain, and bucked against Hiro’s hips in reaction. Satisfied, Hiro released him and licked at the wound once, before starting his little kisses again, trailing lower.

Tadashi, now panting, clasped at his neck. He felt little teeth marks, but fortunately it wasn’t bleeding. It was definitely going to leave a mark though. He sucked his breath in again, Hiro’s soft lips trailing along his collar bone. He had a fear that Hiro would bite him again, yet he didn’t move to stop him. He realised his member was throbbing in his pants, begging to be released, completely turned on by Hiro’s unpredictability. The guilt swelled up inside him again. Just how sick was he?

His left collarbone was saved, and Tadashi let out a sigh of relief as tension released. But soon his pink nipple was in Hiro’s wet mouth. He was thankfully somewhat gentle, tongue flicking back and forth against the hardening centre with the occasional sucking. Not missing a bit, Hiro licked his fingers. His right hand now finding his other nipple to play with. 

So distracted was Tadashi by the pulsing electric feeling coursing through his body, that he didn’t notice Hiro’s free hand had snaked all the way down his body and slid into his pants. He gasped in surprise when his rod was grasped at the base firmly, Hiro’s fingers unable to meet his thumb due to the girth.

It was an awkward position for Hiro to both pump him and lick at his chest. For the second time that night Tadashi was glad for Hiro’s deafblindness, for he didn’t have to hear Tadashi’s whimper when Hiro pulled away from paying attention to his chest. 

Hiro’s progress was hindered by Tadashi’s pants, but this time he didn’t stop Hiro from undressing him, a slave to the younger boy’s touch. With both his pants and his briefs removed, Tadashi’s cock sprung free of the confines with an almost comical slap, angled straight up toward his belly button, the tip glistening in pre-cum.

 

His brother was smiling in his victory and repositioned himself between Tadashi’s legs. Tadashi sat up on his elbows to look down. His head telling him to abort mission, while his heart and entire body told him to give in to the pleasure. His heart was pumping so fast that he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a heart attack.

Hiro’s fingers trailed Tadashi’s parts, starting at his balls. He gasped when Hiro lowered his face and experimented, sucking at him gently. He was a little worried that Hiro would bite again, or suck too hard, but he need not worry for Hiro knew the area was sensitive. In a sensual and meticulous fashion as if mapping it out in his head, Hiro worked his way up the shaft, first with his fingers, then his tongue. It was painfully slow, and his body ached in need.

He threw his head back and closed his eyes, gasping when Hiro’s mouth surrounded the head of his cock. His tongue flitted around, lapping up his pre-cum. Tadashi regained a little bit of composure and watched as Hiro continued to experiment, testing out how much of his length he could handle. It was an extremely erotic sight. With both of his hands on top of each other on his shaft, it was still a struggle to fit the rest into Hiro’s beautiful mouth, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

 

Tadashi had never felt such an overwhelming need to cum. He reached down and took hold of his shaft, Hiro was happy enough to move his own hands to grasp his thighs giving him better leverage and allowing his Tadashi to pump. Hiro took Tadashi’s cock deep into his mouth until it hit Tadashi’s fist and he began to suck. He allowed Tadashi to set a rhythm, and he began pumping. Tadashi moaned, he had never felt this good before, in that moment any thought of shame or guilt was gone.

It didn’t take long, the sensation of the aided blow job and the sight of his brother so eager to please him sent him over the edge. Hiro pulled back with a cough, not-expecting the ejaculation. He swallowed what was in his mouth hungrily, and wiped off the specks that had landed on his cheeks, sucking his fingers greedily.

Tadashi breathed heavily in the afterglow. He felt amazing, but the sense of dread and guilt returned tenfold, and he was angry at himself for crossing the arbitrary line he he had set. But he had to admit that Hiro looked happy, pleased with his handiwork.

All cleaned up, Hiro sighed and rested against Tadashi’s side. “I still want to go to the Spring Festival with you, if that’s okay.” Hiro admitted, as if nothing had just transpired. 

Tadashi still didn’t believe it was a good idea, but everyone else seemed for it and he didn’t want to deny Hiro a new experience, especially when Hiro had just given him one.

\---

 

Tadashi’s phone buzzed. He woke with a start, wondering what time it was, and realising that it was dark. Hiro was resting beside him, but he was awake. He must have fallen asleep after… vivid imagery flowed through his mind. He was still naked, it was lucky Aunt Cass hadn’t checked in on them yet. He reached for his pants which was still just within reach. He had a message from Honey Lemon.

Honey Lemon: Have you asked yet?

Tadashi glanced at Hiro, his fingers were drumming against his sternum now that Tadashi was awake. Tadashi quickly responded with a ‘Yes, we will be going.’, remembering his promise.

Honey Lemon: Great! What are you and Hiro wearing?

 

He hadn’t given it much thought, but fashion was a big part of the festival.

Tadashi: Hiro can probably fit my old yukata. I will just come in something casual.

Tadashi’s phone lit up with an incoming call from Honey Lemon. Tadashi quickly excused himself from Hiro and sat up, letting him know he was answering a call.

“Tadashi Hamada, this is the first time you’ve gone to the festival in like, forever! Let me take you two shopping! We’ve even convinced Gogo to wear her hanbok!” She sounded as bubbly as always.

Tadashi figured it was a good excuse to have Hiro meet his other friends before the festival so he made arrangements to meet them earlier on the Saturday.

\---

“I’m going to dress you in something a little different.” Tadashi explained to Hiro so he wouldn’t be confused by the yukata. Hiro nodded and complied, although he was a little disappointed that Tadashi’s hands didn’t linger. Tadashi was back to his usual self, but Hiro took pride in knowing that he could bend his brother to his will if he tried hard enough. He had even left his mark, because his brother had been wearing a scarf the last couple of days. He raised his arms to allow a belt to be put on, Hiro usually dressed himself it was easier to let his brother dress him as he had trouble with new styles of clothing.

“What’s this for?” Hiro asked curiously, tugging at the sleeves. It felt like he was wearing a bathrobe but with a thicker belt and the fabric wasn’t soft and fluffy, but it was comfortable enough and he enjoyed the freedom from pants. What he found most odd was the socks that he had to wear where his big toe was separated from the rest. He wriggled his big toe in annoyance. Tadashi took the time to explain to him the origins of the garment and the significance of representing their culture during the festival.

Tadashi lead him down the stairs as he felt a little unsteady in his new sandals. He probably didn’t need the help, but he enjoyed the attention and he played up his clumsiness just a little. They paused at the bottom of the stairs and Tadashi asked him to smile, presumably for a photo. He guessed Aunt Cass must be taking one.

They kept walking and Hiro recoiled as he felt unfamiliar fingers pinch his cheeks. It wasn’t Aunt Cass as the fingers felt quite rough and strangely brittle. Tadashi was quick to explain that it was Mrs Matsuda, the strange lady who was now taking care of Mochi. Unfortunately there had been an accident last year when Mochi had tripped Hiro over when he weaved between his legs while he was walking down the stairs. Hiro wasn’t badly hurt, but Tadashi had insisted that the cat had to go for Hiro’s safety. Both Aunt Cass and Hiro were sad about that and Tadashi hadn’t been popular for that week. He missed Mochi, the cat had kept him company whenever Tadashi wasn’t around, but he did admittedly have a habit of tripping him over.

Hiro was startled by the touch, but was relieved that he hadn’t gone into panic mode. He knew Tadashi would cancel everything if he couldn’t even make it to the front door without being scared. 

He needed this to go right for a few reasons. He wanted to prove to Tadashi that he was capable of mixing into the real world. He also wanted Tadashi to enjoy his life a little. He had missed out on so many opportunities because he had been shut inside taking care of him. Hiro’s last reason was on the romantic side. He had remembered the fireworks from when he was a kid, but he also remembered seeing couples, maybe even his parents but he couldn’t be sure, kissing and enjoying the view. Even if Hiro couldn’t enjoy the fireworks, maybe, just maybe, Tadashi would enjoy it with him. He knew it was only a fantasy that Tadashi would acknowledge their relationship in public, but it was a nice dream.

They took Aunt Cass’ car, but the journey was short lived with their destination only about five minutes away from the cafe. He meekly followed Tadashi, holding his hand tightly as he always did when in a new place. He was taken indoors and the smell and warmth instantly reminded him of the Lucky Cat Cafe, the aroma smelling strongly of coffee, although the blend smelt a little different. 

Tadashi lead him to a seat and gestured for him to sit down. He cosigned that his friends were with him and when he was ready he felt he could speak. Tadashi handed him his phone with a braille screen reader attachment, as they had agreed it would be the easiest way to communicate with the group. 

Hiro was happy that Tadashi had made a lot of friends at the institute. He knew he had personally taken a lot of time away from his brother growing up. Just because he couldn’t communicate well with others didn’t mean that his big brother should be isolated as well. He even liked Gogo, even though she had taken a liking to his brother. He couldn’t blame her, but she had better back off. He knew Tadashi had told her he wanted to stay as friends, but he was still on edge.

He had been a little nervous about meeting Tadashi’s friends as from the little Tadashi had talked about them they seemed really incredible. Hiro wondered if he would ever be able to contribute something to the world like they were. It must feel amazing being an inventor. Hiro had made sure to get as much information about Tadashi’s friends as he could before his meeting today. It was only fair, Hiro was sure they knew everything about him from Tadashi, not that there was a lot to him.

Hiro took a deep breath and said out loud “Hi, I’m Hiro Hamada.” It was simple. He was suddenly extremely glad about the device in his hands, he could get tired of speaking very quickly.

Immediately he felt his phone buzzing. He ran his fingers over the braille. Everyone’s names came up next to their little greeting. He noticed that Gogo wasn’t there. Good. He decided to answer in order of response. It was quicker for him to speak, although he felt more comfortable typing as he was aware his voice could be a little harder to understand.

“Do you mind if I touch your hands one at a time? In order of who responded.” Hiro said out loud, placing one of his hands out. He said slowly so that they could understand. He knew that Tadashi would be proud of him for speaking more, and he needed Tadashi to think that he was grown up or he would never be taken seriously.

The first hand that touched him was soft and feminine with long, slender fingers. “You must be Honey Lemon, it’s lovely to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about your chemistry formula development! I haven’t had too much hands on experience myself, but I would love to learn about it sometime.” In truth, Hiro had absolutely zero practical experience with chemistry outside of the realm of textbooks. Apparently it was a little too dangerous to let him near the lab. Hiro and Tadashi had tried to overthrow this, as Tadashi said he could label everything for Hiro with braille but the risk was too high.

He felt his phone vibrate and he went over the new braille. 

Honey Lemon: Hi Hiro! Tadashi has told us so much about you! You’re so cute! I see why he won’t shut up about you! I’ll gladly teach you a thing or two when you swing by the lab.

Hiro blushed. She thought he was cute? Tadashi had told him that he was, but he didn’t really believe him. He stammered out a thank-you and he felt another hand touch him.

This hand was the opposite of Honey Lemon’s, and was even larger than Tadashi’s hand. He couldn’t really tell if it was Fred or Wasabi’s. 

Wasabi: Hi Hiro, everyone calls me Wasabi. I’m the applied physics student. 

Hiro’s left hand quickly read the braille. This was a handy way to communicate! He didn’t bother responding out loud this time.

Hiro: Hello Wasabi. Tadashi said that you are developing powerful industrial sized precision lasers? It sounds really cool! I was thinking about it and I had a few ideas that could make it super marketable that I could email through to you?

Wasabi: Yeah, that’d be great Hiro! 

There was also a message from Tadashi exclaiming that he didn’t know he was working on something about that and that he was impressed. Hiro smiled, he didn’t ask for details about Tadashi’s friends just to sit idly by with the information.

That left the last person. Fred. Fred was the one he was most worried about. With the others he could at least relate to them and talk about their work, but with people like Aunt Cass and Fred he felt like he had to use more small talk and that was not his forte in the slightest.

Perhaps because he was so worried, Hiro recoiled as Fred used both of his hands to cup his in an eager handshake. Hiro quickly pulled back his hand and instinctively shuffled closer to Tadashi who put a protective arm around him. Hiro mentally berated himself, he had been doing so well. Hiro felt the table vibrate indicating that a message had been sent to him and he reached for his screen reader.

Fred: Sorry buddy didnt mean to scare ya  
The names fred by day im the school mascot and by night im also the school mascot

Hiro used his phone to reply, not trusting his voice to behave and replied a little bluntly with, ‘Sorry, I don’t actually know what that is.’

\---

His little brother was doing so much better than expected. He wasn't as open as when he had met with Gogo, but it was difficult for him to juggle a conversation with multiple people when he had been used to talking to one person for most of his life. It had been Wasabi's idea to add Hiro into a group chat, which was relieving for the boy who quickly opted out from speaking to them and switched to text after their initial greeting.

Honey Lemon: Are you ready to go yukata shopping for your brother? 

Asked Honey Lemon after Hiro finished his hot chocolate. Hiro nodded, and stood up waiting for Tadashi to lead him. Tadashi stowed away the device in his pullover's front pocket as the screen reader was clunky to use and not practical when the user was not seated. He would have to look into upgrading to a smaller device so Hiro could use it on the go.

"He's so sweet, Tadashi." Honey Lemon said to Tadashi, she was completely enamoured with Hiro, especially with all the questions he was asking about her chemical engineering work. As chemistry wasn't any of their majors, her other teammates did not share her passion for the elements and Hiro was eating up her explanations like a sponge.

Wasabi was also impressed by the teen's understanding of laser-induced plasma. When he had asked Tadashi how he was following along so well, Tadashi merely shrugged and said he had a lot of time to study. "Just like I've told you, I wasn't lying when I said my little brother was a super genius. Imagine his potential when we get his vision back!" He couldn’t hide that he was extremely proud. What Hiro lacked in social studies, he sure made up for in the sciences.

Fred had a lot less luck building rapport with Hiro. His typing was not very clear, and while Honey Lemon and Wasabi could write logically, Fred spoke in concepts which Hiro had trouble grasping and often typed over one of the other conversations to get attention. 

"I just don't get it." Fred admitted, exasperated after attempting to explain mascots and his favorite comic book character Krogar which his costume was based off on. "Why can he understand rocket science but not a kaiju origin story?"

Tadashi realised that Fred was having the same problem Aunt Cass had, often using metaphors and jumping around in context. He tried his best to explain to Fred what he was doing wrong.

 

"Fred, Hiro has trouble when you're talking about fictional things such as Godzilla or when you talk about mascots because he hasn't experienced them before so he has to develop a meaningful concept. Scientific things are easier for him because he can read the entire theory and it logically makes sense and that way he can come to understand the concept as a whole. But with things like your mascot costume it’s a little tricky... here's an example. Imagine if four blind men touch an elephant. The man who touches the trunk says, “An elephant is like a thick wiggling vine.” The one who touches an ear says, “No, an elephant is like a big leathery fan.” The one who touches the body says, “No! An elephant is like a big brick wall!” And the one who touches the tail says, “How could you all be so wrong?! An elephant is like a hanging, swaying rope!”" 

 

Tadashi paused to see if Fred was following. “Wait, what’s the punchline?" Fred was leaning in, listening intently for Tadashi to finish the joke about the elephant.

Tadashi sighed, but he owed Fred a lot and he was a good friend. "It's not a joke, Fred. The elephant story is meant to teach you that concepts are related to individual experiences. Each of the blind men had an entirely different experience of the elephant and, therefore, each had an entirely different concept of “elephant.” None of the concepts were wrong if we understand them as the products of individual experiences. Each idea of “elephant” makes sense from the perspective of the man who touched a different part of the elephant."

Hiro chimed in unexpectedly, Tadashi hadn't noticed that he was listening as his touch felt so second nature to him. "Here's another example…” He started, and continued with a nudge of encouragement from Tadashi, “When I experienced snow for the first time I thought it was ice cream and asked for chocolate because it was cold and wet. Tadashi had to remind me about the concept of snow. I even knew about snow beforehand and should have expected it, but when I actually felt it for the first time my mind immediately connected to the closest experience I’ve had." Tadashi smiled, he fondly remembered the first time Hiro experienced snow back in the cabin.

"I think I understand what you mean..." Said Fred. "I'll try better to be more clear."

Honey Lemon led the group outside, Tadashi and Hiro carefully trailing behind the group. Even though it was a public holiday, most of the businesses in this area were open due to the festival. Honey Lemon was dressed in a lovely crimson pollera colora which celebrated her latina heritage. In contrast, Wasabi looked quite smart garbed in a simple and modern cut ocacia. And Fred... well, he was just dressed as is normal daggy self. He was going to change into his mascot outfit later that night, he explained.

They were taken down a side street which was bustling with more people than it usually would be with people making last minute preparations for the festival. Tadashi made sure to keep Hiro close, and he was thankful for the rest of the gang for making a protective circle around them. Most of the stores appeared to be very busy, and they decided to send someone off to scope the shops out for something quiet. Fred volunteered before anyone else could, and he tottered off through the markets leaving the crew to get to know Hiro a bit more.

"Hey guys, I found a place!" Fred announced, coming back about 10 minutes later. They weren't sure if he found a quiet place, or had simply scared off the people inside with his antics. Fred led them through the crowds, which eventually thinned out as they travelled through narrower and narrower paths. Tadashi hadn't realised the marketplace was even this large, and wondered how these smaller more hidden businesses managed to survive if they couldn't even get a flow of traffic from the year's biggest festival.

"Fred, you do realise we need a shop that sells clothing, right?" Wasabi asked sceptically as they passed yet another herbal medicine shop.

“I’m serious, we’re here!” If Fred hadn’t pointed it out to them, they would have walked right past the entrance. They entered the space and there was a tiny little old lady in a yukata greeted them in Japanese. Tadashi greeted them back on their behalf. She must have been of extreme age as her back was stooped and her eyes were milky. The store was tiny, but filled with extremely intricate looking garments. All the signs were in Japanese. The ambiance inside was deathly still.

“These look extremely expensive.” Honey Lemon whispered, leaning down to examine the nearest rack, too scared to touch the fabric. “Maybe we should find somewhere else?”

The little old lady had approached them, and she had beelined towards Hiro. Tadashi defensively stepped in front of Hiro in case she touched him unexpectedly as she was raising her shaking hand and pointing a finger at Hiro. There was a sign on the counter saying that all of the kimonos were handmade, but it was hard to imagine that this old lady was fit enough to do so.

“That yukata is far too small for that young lady, and such a masculine style.” She said, speaking to Tadashi in Japanese. He could understand the old lady’s mistake given that it seemed like she had lower vision. Hiro’s shyness conveyed a feminine demeanour which wasn’t helped by his longer than average hair and soft youthful features.

He explained to her that he was actually looking for something for himself and that his brother was fine in his borrowed yukata as he didn’t particularly care for how he looked as he wasn’t able to see.

To his bemusement the shopkeeper chided him for his poor Japanese and lamented on how culture was slipping in the new generation. She tutted and said that she would help the young lady first because it would be easy to find him a matching garment. He told her to wait a moment, and turned to Hiro and asked him in finger braille if he would like a new outfit.

To his surprise the old lady interrupted in clear, albeit accented English, “You know Yubi-Tenji?”

Tadashi turned back to her and answered, “Yes, it’s quite uncommon! Do you know it?”

She laughed, and it was quite a gentle laugh. He had almost expected her to laugh like an anime villain. “Of course I do. My husband and I invented it. I didn’t know it was still in use!”

 

The exact origins of the Japanese fingerbraille, or ‘Yubi-Tenji’ as she had called it were heavily disputed, but if this lady and her husband had invented it he was in their debt. He would have to come back here and pick her brains about it later.

She tottered forward and Tadashi allowed her to reach forward. She touched Hiro’s hand lightly. He pulled back a little, but quickly regained composure. She then grabbed his other hand and quickly began communicating to him. Everyone looked on in awe as the lady silently talked to Hiro, who happily nodded in response every now and again or answered with a quick word or two.

In particular it was an odd experience for Tadashi, who had never seen anyone use the fingerbraille method before in person. He found it impossible to visually read what she was saying to Hiro with the quick taps on his fingers, but he seemed to be quite happy with the conversation.

After a couple of minutes the old lady turned back to Tadashi. “Come back in about an hour and we’ll be ready then.”

“I’d prefer to stay here with Hiro.” Tadashi replied in alarm. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Hiro with a stranger, even if she was able to communicate with him.

“You can stay, but you can’t look until the very end. Your friends will have to leave, I need room to work.” The others had felt uncomfortable for the majority of the exchange, being unable to understand half of the conversation, and they quickly took this as a chance to leave, saying they would come back in an hour and leaving Tadashi with ‘good luck’ smiles.

 

Tadashi knew Hiro enjoyed being pampered, but usually only by him. He quickly explained to Hiro that he would be nearby the whole time, but then Hiro was promptly taken to a changing room. Tadashi was directed to sit in a chair by the counter.

\---

Today was such a surreal experience for Hiro and he hadn’t even gotten to the festival yet. He was surprised when gnarled hands grabbed his own and began talking to him in a familiar way. He had only ever spoken to Tadashi using the fingerbraille method.

“My name is Tomohito. Do you want me to make you look beautiful?” She had asked him simply. He was surprised, as he had thought they were looking for something for his brother to wear but was delighted that this person could speak to him. As he couldn’t look at himself, he had always relied on someone to buy clothes for him. That person was usually Tadashi and he imagined his brother bought clothes for practicality more than how they looked. But this was something different. This was a chance to surprise Tadashi and hopefully look beautiful. He nodded in interest excitingly.

After a while he was lead to a different part of the store. His hands brushed past some of the fabrics and they felt infinitely softer than the yukata he was wearing.

“I used to be a nakōdo before the practice died out.” She fingerbrailled to him. The word ‘nakōdo’ was unfamiliar to him so he queried. She retyped on his fingers an attempt at translating it into English. He sounded out the word. “Machumaka… matchmaker?” He received a ‘yes’ to the translation.

“You fit nicely with that boy out there. He’s a handsome young man and he’s extremely protective of you.”

Hiro blushed. He didn’t know how much this woman knew of him and Tadashi. But he must have told her that they were in a relationship for her to have that assumption? He felt giddy in excitement. He probably didn’t mention they were brothers, so he better not bring that up.

She began undoing his obi and prompted him to remove his yukata. It was quickly replaced by a much heavier version but it felt of superior quality. She removed this after a moment of contemplation and replaced it with another. They went through the process of trying on different garments at least ten times before they found the right one. Tomohito then moved onto the obi. He noticed that this was a lot wider than the one he wore previously and seemed to be a lot more complicated. It seemed she already knew which one fit best with the outfit as she only did this once.

Once satisfied he was asked to sit down. She went to tie his hair up out of his face and he fidgeted a little, afraid of a haircut. She grabbed his hands and told him to behave and he promptly sat still. She began carefully applying makeup to his face. This was a concept which Hiro wasn’t familiar with, but he had decided to trust this person as Tadashi had. He sat extremely still, worried that if he fidgeted that she would mess up whatever she was doing. Her brush strokes were slow and precise. He was told off for scrunching his eyes too hard when he felt the first stroke of a small soft brush along his eyelids but he managed to keep his composure when reminded to relax. Tomohito finished up by returning to his hair, pinning it back into a neat bun and adding a clip of some sort.

Hiro was asked to stand and he asked her how he looked.

“Perfect. Now come outside and we will show your boyfriend.”

\---

The rest of the gang had returned by the time Hiro was ready as it had taken a little over an hour. Tadashi had become impatient and had taken to pacing, and if Wasabi wasn’t there to stop him he would have gone in the back room and ruined the surprise. Fred had taken the free seat to his advantage.

There was a sigh of relief when the old lady finally stepped outside and asked them if they were ready to see Hiro. They all replied with an excited yes! Tadashi was particularly interested as he wasn’t able to convince the lady that Hiro was a boy so he was sure he would be in a feminine style.

There was a collective intake of breath when Hiro stepped out of the back room. Everyone was speechless. Hiro was in a beautiful red furisode with an intricate hand painted and embroidered pattern with a matching golden obi. A furisode was a kimono with extremely long sleeves which was usually worn by young women to indicate they were single and of marrying age.

She had given him a light foundation, which wasn’t as white as a geisha but had softened his features. She had lined his eyes with a sharp black precise wing and used a touch of pink eyeshadow. But most of the attention was drawn to his lips, which were a beautiful glossy pinkish red. It was hard to believe that this was Hiro and not an entirely different person. He had grown so used to seeing him wear the same clothes every day, and the change was just so drastic. He really did make a pretty girl.

“He’s beautiful!” Exclaimed Honey Lemon, breaking the silence. She had already taken a picture.

This was quickly followed by Fred who proclaimed. “I think I’m in love!”

“Yeah… me too.” Tadashi agreed, his voice still light and breathless. He was amazed that Hiro had let her do all of this to him. Hiro really was impressing him today. Maybe Gogo had been right, he really was coddling Hiro too much.

“What do you think?” Hiro asked out loud, a little uncomfortably. Tadashi felt bad for leaving him up there, so he quickly walked over and took his hands. He co-signed to Hiro about how wonderful he looked. This caused Hiro to smile brightly, and he tried to hug Tadashi who stepped back quickly to avoid the makeup being ruined. Tadashi quickly explained to him that he was wearing makeup, a type of face paint which could be transferred to clothes if he wasn’t careful!

He didn’t have too much time to stare as he was quickly whisked away to the changeroom. She presented him with a men's formal kimono which was a combination of a hakama and haori. He noticed that the navy she had chosen matched some of the hues on Hiro’s floral pattern. He admired himself in the mirror. While the design wasn’t as intricate as Hiro’s, the quality of the fabric and stitching were superior to mass marketed costumes.

When he was ready he stepped out of the changing room. Everyone said he looked great and Honey Lemon asked him to stand next to Hiro for another photo.

Tadashi approached the counter and fished his wallet out of the jeans he was carrying. He dreaded how much it would cost, he had been expecting to spend $100 for his own yukata at just a cheap shop, but the one he was wearing was at least three times that. He didn’t even want to think about the cost of Hiro’s furisode.

“Thank-you for your time. What is the total?” He asked her, reverting back to Japanese.

“Your friend has already paid for the services. If you need any alterations please come back. Please enjoy the festival!” She said with a little bow.

What did she mean it was already paid for? He glanced back at Fred who smiled and winked at him, confirming it was him.

“Would I be able to ask what the total was so I can pay my friend back?” He already owed Fred enough.

“I was asked not to disclose the amount.” She said politely.

Before Tadashi could enquire further, Fred intercepted. Tadashi looked ready to take it all back. “ALRIGHT GUYS! Let’s get to the festival!” He announced loudly, dragging Tadashi and Hiro away from the counter before he could protest.

“Please come again!” The lady called out after them, bowing as they left, a twinkle in her white eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weee, finally a new chapter. I've been avoiding completing this one because I've gotten ahead of myself and have been writing chapters in advance. Thanks for those who continue to leave kudos and comments! I love them :3 Just a heads up, this story is going to be long (at least 30 chapters). I haven't watched much of the series because I don't want it to effect my 'canon' for this story too much but I'm probably going to give in soon since I have a pretty set path for where this is going. We're only a couple of chapters away from where the very first chapter left off - who's excited?


	12. The Festival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Thank-you for all your comments and kudos! As a reward I'm posting this chapter and the next one (Next one is short but plot important). Let me know what you think! I really want to go back and edit through some of the earlier chapters because I feel my writing style has changed quite a bit, but I might wait until I release Chapter 14 which is the mid-way point of this story. Things will be getting a bit darker from Chapter 15 onwards!

TWO DAYS BEFORE THE FESTIVAL: 

“I’m coming over tonight.” Gogo had said the next morning, while walking to Professor Callaghan’s first class. It hadn’t been a request.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea… I really need to work on Baymax. I can’t afford any distractions.” He said, heat rising to his cheeks because he knew full well that he got plenty of distractions from Hiro most nights. Tadashi was hardly getting any sleep between school, Hiro, late-night studying after Hiro passed out, and his early morning workouts.

He saw her lips parting, a sly look in her eyes told him she was already trying to get through whatever excuse he had.

“Listen, Gogo. I'm not interested in a relationship with you. We should just be friends. I'm sorry.” He had blurted out, a little too abruptly. 

She stopped dead still in the hallway, her expression was blank. She seemed to have taken it well, or at least as well as he could expect. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. A few of the other students had stopped to watch, keen to see whether Gogo would explode.

“Nice scarf.” She commented, her voice was hollow. 

Tadashi’s blush deepened and he pressed his hand to his neck where Hiro’s bite still stung on his skin from the night before. She marched past him quickly, his reaction arousing even more suspicion in Gogo.

She had managed to avoid speaking or even looking at him the next two days at school. The rest of the gang sitting between them and talking business as usual. It really wasn’t much different to how she acted toward him before he had fucked things up, so at least everything was back to normal.

\---

The festival was already bustling and filled with the smells of different foods and sounds of clashing music. Hiro stuck by his side closely, it would only get busier as the night progressed. There wasn’t a distinct theme, and instead of grouping similar themes it seemed like the event curators had intentionally scattered the stalls. Performance artists were abundant with everything from musicians playing the bagpipes, didgeridoos and African drums creating a mixture of sounds. They walked past stilt walkers, people spinning plates and even a mime. It seemed wherever he looked there was something new and exciting.

“Are you okay?” Honey Lemon asked him, a concerned look on her face.

He smiled weakly back and told her he was fine. He hadn’t realised he had been frowning. He wished more than anything Hiro was able to see the festival. It felt cruel marching him through all this. 

“It’s alright Tadashi. You’re allowed to have fun and Hiro doesn’t seem to mind.” Wasabi said, guessing what the problem was.

“That’s right Tadashi! You’re so close to getting the tech calibrated for him! Next year he’ll be able to see everything!” Honey Lemon said encouragingly.

He thanked them and gave them a genuine smile. They were right, it was okay to take a night off and he didn’t take Hiro outside enough anymore. It didn’t take long for Tadashi’s scowl to return.

Hiro looked beautiful tonight and he didn’t like the way some people, particularly men, were looking at him. At first he had thought people had been looking at him because Hiro was a boy, but he quickly realised he had been mistaken as the look in the eyes of the other festival goers were in awe instead of judgement. This did little to qualm his overprotectiveness. Hiro was _his_. He wanted to take Hiro somewhere quiet and alone.

Fred had disappeared as soon as they had arrived to get into his costume. Honey Lemon and Wasabi helped form a protective barrier around Hiro and Tadashi as they made their way towards the lake to meet up with Gogo. Tadashi became increasingly nervous as they approached, as he hadn’t spoken to her since he told her he wasn’t interested in a relationship just a few days ago.

He hadn’t been the most tactful, as he had promised Hiro he would do it as soon as possible the next time he saw her. Hiro had laughed at him when he told her how it went down, and gave him advice on what he could have done better. Once again Tadashi had to wonder what sort if websites his brother was reading in his spare time.

 

Gogo looked up from her phone and popped her gum as they approached. She looked completely different than her usual self. More feminine? It surprised him almost as much as Hiro’s makeover. While she wore her makeup the same as usual she looked a lot more feminine in her hanbok, her skirt was even a matching shade to the purple streak in her hair. Her eyes locked with Tadashi, and then narrowed. She popped her gum at him in response to his attempted smile. To add effect, her eyes reflected the flambé of one of the stalls behind them, visually adding fire to her eyes. He instinctively shivered at the venom, and the grip Hiro had on his arm tightened in response. He looked down when he felt Hiro’s face pressed against his arm, and he put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

“Gogo, you look great!” Honey Lemon said ecstatically, running up to hug her friend. Gogo didn’t hug her back.

“Who the hell is _she_?!” Gogo asked Honey Lemon, breaking out of the hug and staring directly at Hiro. “He couldn’t even wait a week?” She didn’t bother to keep her voice down, causing the rest of the gang to laugh nervously at her misunderstanding. “What’s so funny? Wait...”

She marched heavily towards Tadashi who had been deliberately staying a little back. He took a step back in response. “What the fuck Hamada.” She hissed.

Tadashi told her it wasn’t what she thought and maneuvered himself so Hiro’s face was showing, putting his arm reassuringly around the boy’s shoulders.

Gogo stared at Hiro, a mixture of emotions flashing behind her eyes.

“Is that Hiro? Why is he dressed like that?” She spat the words out aggressively toward Tadashi. He couldn’t help but notice she glanced at his neck again, but it was thankfully mostly healed and he was confident that the collar of his gi was high enough.

“It… sort of just happened.” Tadashi confessed, looking at his friends for help. Even though she was only a couple of inches taller than Hiro, Gogo could be scary at times. “...You look great.” He added, hoping it would help calm her down. It didn’t.

Honey Lemon had moved behind her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Gogo took a deep breath, realising she was causing a scene. Tadashi became aware that a few people had slowed down and some had even stopped to watch the couple’s feud. Gogo simply raised an eyebrow as she allowed her friend to lead her back into the inner circle. 

Honey Lemon explained to Gogo what had happened back at the dress shop, and Wasabi added that they all thought Hiro looked cute, and they spoke about meeting Hiro for a bit.

Tadashi took this time to explain to Hiro what was happening around them, filling him in on what Hiro had missed. He briefed over the Gogo confrontation and instead began to describe the atmosphere. Hiro had more questions as he had picked up on his brother’s strange body language, but Tadashi was acutely aware that Gogo was staring daggers at them and watching them interact so he promised to fill him in at home.

“The food smells wonderful.” Hiro exclaimed, realising he wasn’t going to get much more out of Tadashi. “Can we eat soon? I want to try a bit of everything!” They didn’t have much of an opportunity to visit other restaurants and try new foods so it was a good chance for Hiro to taste new things. Tadashi felt his stomach rumble at the suggestion.

“We’re going to get something to eat.” Tadashi said towards the gang. It was a good chance to escape.

They hadn’t eaten lunch yet and only had snacks at the cafe as they were waiting to devour festival food so Wasabi and Honey Lemon were more than happy to go back into the fray, and offered to join them, Gogo trailing ominously.

Unsure of what to get first, he followed Wasabi’s lead and went to a small Japanese food cart which wasn’t very busy. The vendor complimented Hiro as he worked, admiring his kimono.

“Thank-you sir.” Tadashi replied back quickly when he received the food and he tried to lead Hiro away before he had to explain his brother’s deadblindness.

“You don’t understand Japanese?” He said disapprovingly as they turned, “Oh well, you’re still a beautiful couple.”

Tadashi lead them a couple of steps away to join the others. His ears were still burning with the man saying they looked good as a couple. He glanced down at Hiro and smiled. They really must have looked like a couple tonight in their matching clothes and the way they walked with each other, Hiro trusting Tadashi with every step.

“Try this. It’s called takoyaki. Be careful, it’s very hot.” Tadashi fingerbrailled to Hiro before offering him one of the balls. He offered him the toothpick which held a battered ball-shaped snack. Despite being half-Japanese, Hiro hadn’t tried too much of the cuisine as it wasn’t one of Aunt Cass’ specialities.

Hiro chewed the takoyaki ball and nearly spat it out straight away, narrowly avoiding the back of Gogo’s dress which she thankfully didn’t notice as she was too busy chatting with the others. Tadashi couldn’t help but laugh at Hiro’s reaction to the food.

“Just what was that?!” Hiro spat out, wiping his mouth with the back of his expensive sleeve causing Tadashi’s laughter to freeze. Fortunately none of the makeup or any sauce smudged onto the fabric. “It was so chewy. And you weren’t kidding about it being hot!”

“It’s a Japanese dish, it has octopus in it.” Tadashi explained, switching to the tadoma method as he wasn’t quite sure what the word for octopus was in fingerbraille.

“Oc-to-pus?” He repeated out loud. He seemed completely dumbfounded by this word. Aside from butterfish their family really didn’t eat too much seafood. “What’s an octopus?” 

It was becoming rarer, but every now and then Hiro would come across something that he didn’t know. Usually it would be things like obscure plants, animals or objects that don’t come up in daily conversations. Tadashi told him that it was a sea creature and he would explain what it was in more detail later. He just knew that Hiro would end up asking him a million questions about octopuses that he didn’t know the answer to. He still had painful memories of trying to explain why spiders have eight legs and why people had arachnophobia.

Tadashi guided Hiro to some stalls with some safer choices. The gang enjoyed themselves talking about the latest technologies being developed, and even how some of last year’s graduates were going. A couple of alumni had already sold their projects to big corporations and were living a comfortable life. Hiro seemed content eating the snack sized portions and walking around with his brother, but Tadashi was acutely aware that it must have been taking a toll on him.

“We should head over and see what SFIT has to offer.” Honey Lemon suggested.

“That’s a good idea. We should visit Fred.” Tadashi agreed, following their lead. After the SFIT stall he would probably take Hiro home.

The crowds were getting thicker, but Hiro seemed to be handling the occasional bump rather well.

The others had undersold SFIT when they described it as a stall. They were approaching a giant marquee that dwarfed the rest of the festival stalls. The exterior had an impressive 3D projection mapping display of changing geometric shapes and lights. The university was a major sponsor of the festival and it came with it’s perks.

“Tadashi! There you are!” The familiar voice of Aunt Cass cried out as they approached the giant tent. Tadashi had forgotten all about meeting up with Aunt Cass, distracted by Hiro’s transformation. 

“We figured you’d come by here! Oh, hi Gogo!” She said brightly as they approached. A bigger figure dressed in black was behind her, it must have been her date. There was a collective gasp when he stepped out from behind her into the light.

“Professor Callaghan?!” Said half the group in unison. 

Aunt Cass had mentioned that she had a date for the night, but she neglected to mention that it was with his professor.

“Oh, hey Aunt Cass… and Professor Callaghan.” Tadashi said after a moment of shocked silence.

The Professor greeted them and led them inside. Tadashi wondered what the installation would be showing, and he noted the posted sign said something about a Virtual Reality experience simply named “A Ten Second Journey". The Professor lead them past the long ticketed line and into the marquee.

Inside the giant tent was a bunch of people happily chatting and looking at exhibition pieces.When Gogo, who was last stepped inside, the curtains closed behind them and the atmosphere had completely changed. 

The room has disappeared and had been replaced with what felt like infinite, like they were standing in space, only there were no stars, there was only what could be described as nothingness. In the nothingness he could see nothing, and for a small moment he panicked, but luckily could still feel Hiro holding onto him. The sounds and music from the festival had completely been shut out. It was eerily silent, and Tadashi noticed that not even his own voice as he tried to speak was making a noise. He felt his mouth moving, but couldn’t hear himself. It was the longest ten seconds of his life before everything began to make sense again and they emerged back into reality.

“What did you see?” Professor Callaghan asked the kids as they all came back. Things were back to normal and looked like what they expected the inside of the marquee to eventually look like. There were a lot of other people, mostly of student age inside laughing and drinking. There were also some smaller exhibits, mostly cute robotic pieces. It reminded him of a modern art gallery. Tadashi looked behind him and all he could see was the entrance which they had come through, and nothing other than some other people entering who looked as bewildered as he had felt.

The others began chattering about what they had saw. Wasabi had been walking through a giant library, and Honey Lemon on a beach with white sand. They seemed to have completely different experiences than the isolating one he had encountered. He wondered if holding onto Hiro had anything to do with it. It pained him that Hiro had to feel that isolating experience every minute of every day.

“It was one of the entries from the Science Fair this year, to put it simply it’s a virtual reality warping system that doesn’t require a headset. As you saw it’s never been developed further than a party-trick, but it’s still impressive.” Professor Callaghan explained to them while leading them to a private seating area.

“Professor, which student does it belong to?” Tadashi asked, surprised that it was student work. If there was tech that could change what a person perceived, maybe they could help his brother.

“Unfortunately their piece was non-functioning on the day of the fair and they weren’t approved.” Professor Callaghan said solemnly.

“Tough luck Tadashi, I guess you can’t use them like you do with everyone else.” Chided Gogo, who sat with only Honey Lemon between them.

Suddenly Aunt Cass screamed, saving Tadashi from a response. A skateboarding monster by the name of Fred had just appeared beside her. Laughing, Tadashi took the opportunity to introduce Aunt Cass to the rest of his friends.

“So… you didn’t tell me your Aunt was dating Professor Callaghan.” Fred said, leaning into Tadashi. As usual he had little tact and it was loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Tadashi didn’t know! We actually only met yesterday. I closed up shop early yesterday for the festival so I came into SFIT to bring Tadashi some food. That’s when I ran into Robert and we started talking about Tadashi. We may have accidentally eaten the sandwiches I was bringing you. Sorry!” She said, laughing. “Wait, where’s Hiro?!” She said standing up, suddenly in alarm again.

She didn’t realise why everyone started laughing. Her eyes had glazed right over the girl who had been following in Tadashi’s shadow this whole time. Hiro very rarely left the house in something other than his school uniform and dark glasses, let alone in a dress with his hair and a full face of makeup done.

“Hiro’s right here!” Tadashi said, moving out of the way so she could see Hiro. He wasn’t sure how she would react, but he doubted it would be negative like Gogo’s response.

Aunt Cass looked a little stunned for a moment, but quickly relaxed exclaiming just how cute he looked. “He looks just like a little doll! And he sat still long enough for someone to do that? That’s wonderful.” She said, gushing over him.

“Are you talking to him using an app?” Professor Callaghan asked them, as he had been looking over Wasabi’s shoulder who had been transcribing the conversation for Hiro’s benefit. Tadashi would have to thank him later.

“Yeah, we’ve been trialling a group conversation with his screen reader today and it’s going well. I can add you and Aunt Cass to the conversation if you like.” Tadashi told his Aunt and the Professor.

The conversation them quickly moved to their phones so that Hiro could be included as well.

Robert: Hi Hiro, I’m Tadashi’s teacher. You can just call me Robert.  
Hiro: Hi Robert. It’s an honour to meet you. I’ve read a lot about your work in robotics. You’re Robert Callaghan right? As in Callaghan’s Law of Robotics?  
Robert: You’re familiar with my work? That’s surprising! I guess Tadashi has told you all about SFIT. You must be excited about his project.

Tadashi interrupted Callaghan out loud. “Professor, I haven’t told him exactly what I’m working on yet.”

“Oh?” Callaghan seemed surprised, but nodded in agreement, “Wise choice, Tadashi. It’ll take years before the tech will be developed enough to get approved for human use. Best not to get his hopes up.” Tadashi kept his face straight. He was definitely going to get the tech to work for Hiro way before that, but he would have to jump through a lot of illegal loopholes to do it.

Hiro: No, Tadashi hasn’t told me anything about his project. He said it will be a surprise. But it’s amazing that you’re at SFIT! I was jealous when I found out you were teaching at the school. Back when I read about you it said you were working at Krei Tech.

A shadow passed across Callaghan’s face at the mention of Krei Tech. Whenever it was mentioned in class he was always very dismissive about the company, usually referring to its questionable ethics. He had never mentioned that he had worked there.

Robert: No, I left Krei Tech quite a while ago. I find teaching is more of my calling as my students impress me with their ingenuity. I take it you’re interested in robotics?

Hiro: Yes! I read the International Journal of Robotics Research every quarter. Tadashi used to translate it into braille for me before it became readily available online. 

Robert: You seem like you have a sharp mind. Maybe you’ll join SFIT yourself when you graduate!

They all watched Hiro as paused in his usual rapidfire responses.

Hiro: Are you really dating my Aunt? I think that’s really cool.

 

Tadashi wasn’t surprised that Hiro had completely ignored Professor Callaghan’s praise. Hiro had always underestimated his own ability. 

Cass: we’re on our first date hiro. We aren’t officially dating just yet.

Robert: Speaking about dating, I’ve noticed your brother and and Miss Tomago have gotten quite close.

Tadashi wasn’t expecting the change of subject. Tadashi glanced at Gogo and looked away quickly. She was scowling at him.

“We aren’t really seeing each other anymore, Professor.” Tadashi said, trying to clear up the air. Aunt Cass seemed surprised but she was also probably a little relieved. 

As if to confirm that the relationship was over, their phones lit up.

Hiro: Tadashi promised me he wasn’t dating her anymore.

Hiro closed off his device, sulking a little. Tadashi quickly signed to him that it was over between him and Gogo and he had nothing to worry about. He was too busy with Hiro to notice the rage building in Gogo.

“Does Hiro not like me or something?” She said finally, standing. Her hands were curled into fists. “Is that why you broke up with me? Because Hiro wanted you to?” Her voice was hollow and calm but it seemed like she was on the edge of exploding.

“Gogo… it’s not like that. Hiro does like you, he just gets…”

“Jealous?!” She spat out.

“Look, Gogo. It’s as I told you, I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship. I need to focus on--”

“Focus on Hiro. I get it.” She finished for him. Everyone watched on in silence. Even the chatter around the marquee had died down. “You won’t be there for him forever, Tadashi. And one day you’ll have to think for yourself. Excuse me.” She left abruptly. Honey Lemon tried to follow her but was brushed off.

\---

“Listen! Fireworks!” Fred exclaimed. The sound of the booming fireworks overhead interrupting the moment to Tadashi’s relief. He could feel that his Aunt had a lot of questions and he wasn’t up to answering them right now. They all quickly hurried outside of the tent to watch the fireworks. 

“I think I should take Hiro home.” Tadashi said, speaking mostly to his Aunt. It was a good opportunity to slip away.

“Tadashi, I’ll walk you to the car.” Professor Callaghan, said, overhearing that he was leaving. Aunt Cass looked like she was about to protest, wanting to watch the fireworks with someone, but decided against it and released her grip on the Professor’s hand.

Tadashi agreed, and followed Callaghan with Hiro in tow. He gave Hiro his sunglasses back so that the flashes from the fireworks and the festival lights wouldn’t disturb him.

“Tadashi, I know it’s a bit strange if I start dating your Aunt so if you don’t want me to proceed further I will honor that.”

Ahh, so that’s what this was about. He did find it a little bit odd, he couldn’t imagine they had too much in common. But he personally didn’t mind what his Aunt got up to as long as she was happy and there were certainly benefits to seeing his Professor more.

“I really don’t mind at all, Professor. I don’t think Hiro would have any objections either.”

“That’s good to hear, Tadashi. She’s a remarkable woman.” There was a pause due to a particularly large shell. He coughed, looking uncharacteristically flustered, “Now forgive me for asking, but does Hiro regularly crossdress?”

He sounded light-hearted enough, but Tadashi was careful to explain it was a one-off for the festival. He knew some people were quite conservative.

“And do you know much about your parent’s work, Tadashi?” Professor Callaghan asked, changing the subject. The way his voice shifted made him believe that this was the real reason he wanted to talk to him.

“No, not really. Only what was released publicly. It was classified and I was too young to be involved at the time. After the accident all of their research was removed as evidence and probably destroyed. Why do you ask?”

“Well, Tadashi.” He said, stopping and putting a hand on his shoulder. They were at the entrance to the the carpark. It was quiet now but it would get busy as soon as the fireworks finished. “I think you’re well aware that your project wouldn’t regularly be approved at SFIT, and your academic focus hasn’t had a huge emphasis in robotics or physics.”

Tadashi nodded in agreeance, wondering where this was going. Was he failing his classes? He thought he was managing to keep up with the workload.

 

“We have both experienced a loss. I used to work with your parents on that very same project and we were a group of friends much the same as your little gang back there. I lost some of my best friends that day.”

They had stopped at the edge of the festival. Tadashi was listening intently, trying not to miss a word over the booming fireworks.

“You worked with my parents at Krei Tech? You knew my parents?” He asked earnestly, remembering the way his face had stiffened when Krei had been mentioned. He wondered why Callaghan had never mentioned this earlier in their project discussions. His parents were rarely spoken about in their household and it was a pain he had buried deep inside as he had a more immediate concern to worry about with taking care of his brother.

“Yes, but it wasn’t Krei Tech at the time. The group we were working with was actually owned by Lee Enterprises. This was before just after the company division.”

“Lee Enterprises?” A firework. His heart was beating fast. “That’s Fred’s father’s company, isn’t it?”

“Indeed it is.”

He wondered if Fred knew about the incident. Surely not? Fred would have been as young as he was at the time. But maybe he did know. It would explain his generosity and his eagerness to help fund Hiro’s recovery.

“Why are you telling me all this now?” Tadashi asked.

“I’m telling you this because I want you to help Hiro, and we both know his condition is unique. It’s similar to Usher syndrome but affected him reverse, correct?”

Tadashi nodded. Usher syndrome was a genetic disease affecting infants, usually targeting hearing before sight. But the problem was, while his simulations of his projected seemed to be effective in aiding those with similar ailments such as usher, there was something missing that caused an error in Hiro’s situation.

“What if I told you that there is a way to obtain a sample of what we were working on? There’s something you must know, the cure given to Hiro was completely successful.” That didn’t make sense. If it was successful why did Hiro suffer such adverse side-effects? “It stopped the side-effect of death. But what they were originally creating in the lab… they, _we_ , were working on creating a biological weapon that could be used politically that would render enemies near useless, both deaf and blind trapped only in their own minds. Our division at Lee Enterprises at the time was a team put together to create biological warfare.”

What was Callaghan talking about? Why would he had his parents ever be involved in such a project? All the papers had suggested that they had been working on something to stop the spread of a disease for the Government. It went against everything he knew about them. He was interrupted from responding by a tugging at his sleeve.

Hiro was fidgeting next to him, unsure of what was happening. _Near useless, both deaf and blind trapped only in their own minds._ Professor Callaghan’s harsh words reverberated in his mind and the feeling of emptiness he had experienced back at SFIT tent came back to mind. Tadashi fingerspelled to him, letting him know they would be going home soon. 

“Where can I obtain the formula? Do you know it?” Tadashi asked. It was absolutely crucial that he obtained it. The largest setback he had at the moment was that he had no test subjects with the same neurological condition as Hiro. If he could simulate that… well, he should be able to cure Hiro.

“No. We all worked on different parts, I wasn’t even involved in the chemical side of things. You have to understand, we didn’t know that we were building a weapon at the time, Tadashi. We were all making components… I believe your parents realised what was happening and that’s when they tried to end the program.” The Professor looked sad.

“You don’t think what happened was an accident?”

“I don’t know what happened, Tadashi. But I do know the only copy of the formula would be safely guarded in Fred’s house. If you could obtain that, and study it, I’m sure you’ll find the compound you’ll need to unlock Hiro’s senses.”

 

He realised that the fireworks had ended, and he could hear people beginning to mill closer to them.

“Thank-you Professor. I’ll talk to Fred and see what he can do.” Tadashi was certain his friend would help him if he asked. Despite Fred not mentioning his father’s connection to his family, Tadashi felt no ill toward his greatest ally.

“It might be best not to mention this to Fred. If his father finds out, you’ll lose the opportunity and the serum will be relocated.” The Professor warned.

“Okay. I’ll keep it in mind. Thank-you for your help. We’ll have to talk more at school… and more about the mind altering tech that we saw tonight.”

Callaghan nodded and Tadashi felt eyes watching them as they walked toward the car. He had a lot to think about. His heart and mind raced at a million miles an hour. He had even forgotten to ask more about the VR experience, but he supposed he could ask that at school.

When they finally got to the car they stopped again and he felt Hiro’s cool hand against his cheek. He sighed, his mind instantly clearing as he looked at Hiro. He looked so beautiful tonight, and he had hardly spent any time talking to him. “I love you.” He said out loud, even though the other couldn’t hear it. He wanted to kiss him more than anything right now, but he still felt like they were being watched even though Professor Callaghan had left.

 

\---

They had been walking for a while, had they really parked this far away? Tadashi was doing his best to keep Hiro away from the crowds. Hiro didn’t really mind too much. As long as he was with Tadashi he was safe. They had stopped, and Hiro assumed he was talking to someone. “‘Dashi, I’m tired.” Hiro pleaded, his patience wearing thin. He better not be talking to Gogo. The conversation wrapped up quickly, and Hiro noticed that the weird pulsing feeling in his body and the ground that had been annoying him for the past ten minutes had stopped. If he had to make a guess it was probably fireworks, he had remembered them being loud. 

“Your face is hot.” Hiro observed, when they finally came to a stop again. His fingers felt Tadashi’s cheeks before finding the correct position. “Have you been drinking? I read that it was one of the side-effects.” He said matter-of-factly. “Tadashi, I don’t want to go home straight away. I was lying when I said I was tired… I was just tired of having to talk to so many people. Can you take me somewhere nice, where it’s just you and I?” It was like every question was directed at him instead of a natural flow of conversation between a group of people and had been quite taxing.

Hiro felt the smooth lips kiss his fingers and he was guided to sit down in the passenger seat. They travelled longer than he expected, at least 20 minutes which was a long distance in the compact city. Hiro didn’t complain, he was getting better at controlling his motion sickness and he was glad that Tadashi was taking him somewhere to be alone.

He was taken by the hand and taken for a short walk before he was prompted to sit down on what felt like grass. Hiro gasped as Tadashi’s lips captured his own, and he happily returned the gesture moaning softly in response, parting his lips to allow for a deeper kiss. They were probably somewhere secluded for Tadashi to be this bold, but a part of him hoped that they were in the open so they no longer had to hide their relationship.

They were both lying down on the grass now, with Tadashi partially on top of him. Hiro resisted the urge to tear off his kimono, afraid of ruining the moment. It was excruciating letting his brother set the ever so slow and teasing pace but Hiro had remembered his promise to Tadashi. Hiro wasn’t allowed to do anything too extreme in public and he wasn’t sure where they were. It was both frightening and exhilarating. He felt certain they must be alone, but maybe with his kimono and hairstyle he passed as a girl and Tadashi was taking the risk that no one would recognise him. 

 

One of Tadashi’s hands had travelled south, finding the slip in the kimono and lightly stroking his thigh. Hiro whimpered under his fingers, his erection pressing hard against the silk. Unable to resist, Hiro tried to have his revenge from the teasing and reached for Tadashi’s manhood, but he was sadly intercepted. His fingers were brought to Tadashi’s mouth for his first words since he had lead Hiro to where they were.

“We’re not alone.” Tadashi said simply, and Hiro’s heart raced at the words. Tadashi must have been using the many layers of their kimonos to conceal the playful hand on his thigh. It felt a little weird knowing people could be watching them on what was otherwise a private moment, but it also made him excited and even happy that Tadashi was beginning to accept him outside of just their bedroom.

 

Tadashi must have noticed that Hiro’s body language had changed, Tadashi took the time to explain that they were in a secluded area but there was a chance of someone walking by. He described the stars, the river, and the famous bridge that San Fransokyo was known for. He told Hiro how beautiful he looked, and to anyone who didn’t know better they would have assumed that he was Tadashi’s girlfriend. Hiro felt his heart sing. If only it was that easy.

Hiro wasn’t quite sure yet about how he felt about being misgendered as a girl, but he had been given compliments for his dress via the chat and most importantly Tadashi seemed to like it. He wondered if Tadashi would like him more if he was a real girl, maybe that’s why he was so sexually reserved with him? He had certainly given his brother every chance he could to engage in full-intercourse.

“Are you sexually attracted to girls or boys?” He asked, pulling away from a kiss, never one to shy away from asking questions from Tadashi.

As usual when Hiro sprung unexpected sexual questions on his big brother there was a lag while he paused to think before responding, his spare hand still absently tracing the soft skin on his thigh.

“I can honestly say I’ve only ever had feelings like this for you, Hiro.”

That was the answer Hiro had been hoping for, but he did find it a little odd so he probed further.

“I don’t just mean love Tadashi. You’ve never been attracted to another person? Not even a little bit? What about in High School?”

From Hiro’s understanding of puberty it was quite odd that his sighted brother Tadashi had never had sexual feelings for anyone else. He felt a heavy sigh breathe heavily from his brother’s mouth, and the fingers brushing his leg increased in pace tracing a nervous circle onto his leg.

“Hiro, it’s you. It has always been you. I thought it was strange too… at first, when my classmates started noticing the girls, I felt nothing. I didn’t even consider that I could be gay until the rumours started circulating around the school. But still I felt no attraction. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when I started seeing you more because of school that I felt my first… that I knew something was wrong with me. I thought I was asexual up until those feelings started, and I tried my best to ignore them until...”

Hiro was happy that Tadashi was sharing his personal feelings, but he hated how he always dismissed their relationship based on society’s view of right and wrong. It made Hiro feel lucky that he didn’t have to deal with those problems trapped in a world of his own. 

“It was Christmas, wasn’t it? In the cabin?” Hiro interjected, finishing the story for him. “Is that when you knew?”

“I… how did you know? Yes. Before that I thought I was just confused, mistaking signals. But I was wrong.”

“Because I noticed you acting differently towards me after that. I was too young at the time to know why, exactly...” Hiro’s eyebrows furrowed as he remembered something distasteful, “And that’s when you started seeing that counsellor.” Tadashi had tried to limit contact with him for a while, which had caused Hiro to think he had done something wrong. Tadashi had stopped seeing the therapist after Hiro confronted him about that.

He sighed, and decided to take more control. His brother was always so afraid of what other people wanted him to do that he never worried about himself. Hiro’s free hand reached down to Tadashi’s, and guided it higher up his thigh. He was pleased when he met with no resistance and Tadashi obediently slipped into his waistband and began pumping his earnest member. Tadashi resumed kissing him, and this time their kisses were just as deep and passionate as they were when they were at home.

Hiro blushed when Tadashi lightly fingerspelled the characters for beautiful on his chest. He could fill Tadashi’s hardened cock against his body pressing through the layers of silk just wanting to break free. He urged Tadashi to take him then and there but as usual Tadashi did not act on the urge.

Hiro was on the edge of cumming when Tadashi suddenly stopped and broke apart from him. Hiro immediately tried to cover his legs in the fabrics, assuming they had stopped because they had been caught out. He was unsure of what to do with himself as he waited for Tadashi to return and tell him who or what happened and he sat up and waited for what felt like at least five minutes, but it was probably a lot less. His breathing quickened as he was beginning to get a little frightened, alone in an unknown place without Tadashi’s physical contact to ground him.

Suddenly he was scooped up from the ground in Tadashi’s strong and familiar arms. It felt like they were covering a lot of ground and it wasn’t long until they were back in their car and on their way home. Hiro brooded, wishing he wasn’t so useless and knew what was going on.

It wasn’t until they were upstairs that Tadashi talked to him, the sense of urgency finally dissapitating.

“Who saw us?” Hiro asked immediately the moment he was sat down on their bed. 

“Gogo… she fled when I noticed her.” He replied, before slumping on the bed next to Hiro for what might be the last time.

_Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned._ He remembered reading somewhere. Hiro’s heart sunk.


	13. Mr. Lee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE: I uploaded this at the same time as Chapter 12 - If you have not read "The Festival" chapter make sure you go back!
> 
> Also this is a bit of a shorter one. Next chapter we finally make it up to the same period in time as the first chapter! Let me know how you're enjoying everything so far!

Gogo continued to avoid him at SFIT, and he had no time to think about Gogo or what she saw. She hadn’t confronted him yet, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.

Tadashi Hamada would do absolutely anything for his little brother, even if that meant betraying a friend’s trust. But that didn’t mean he wanted to do it.

He approached Callaghan on Monday after their first lesson with his concerns. “Professor Callaghan, surely I could just ask Fred to obtain the serum. I’m sure his dad will understand if it’s for research.”

Professor Callaghan was adamant. “You must not mention this to Fred. If his father hears even a whisper about it I can assure you the serum will be even harder to obtain than it already is.”

And so, Tadashi formulated his plan. The first step was finding out where the serum was located so he would have to go to Fred’s house. 

 

“Hey Fred, do you want to hang out after school?” He asked casually when Fred wandered in during the lunch break. This was a little unusual as Tadashi rarely stayed back with the rest of the gang after school. As usual he felt daggers from Gogo but she seemed to have kept what she thought she saw during the festival to herself.

“Yeah, of course dude. What did you have in mind?” Fred responded as he took his monster head off.

“Maybe we can just hang out at your place?” Fred seemed to consider it for a moment before agreeing, as long as it was just him. He knew Fred was a little bit weird when it came to his wealth, and his other friends had assumed he was on welfare.

The day ticked away. Tadashi incessantly checking his phone. The GPS tracking he had in Hiro’s clothes seemed completely operational but he was a little nervous as it was the first time he wouldn’t be there to make sure he got home safely on the tram from school.

Fred met with Tadashi in the parking lot, “I only live a short walk away.” He explained. Tadashi mounted his scooter and Fred got on the back.

Fred wasn't wrong, it was only a 2 minute drive up the hill. "Just park up here." Yelled Fred. Tadashi rolled to a stop in front of an expansive mansion which overlooked San Fransokyo.  
"Welcome to me casa. That's French for 'Welcome to my home'".

It was a little crazy to think that someone as humble as Fred came from such a rich family.

"Welcome home Master Fred." The door opened and a very proper looking butler welcomed him inside. Fred fist bumped the man and casually introduced him as Heathcliff on his way in, and amusingly enough the butler kept his fist up for Tadashi.

"It's unusual for you to bring home a friend. May I announce your guest? Your father is home."  
Fred stopped and looked a little startled. Clearly he hadn't expected his father to be there.

"Dad's home? No, there's no need to announce my guest." His voice was uncharacteristically high pitched.

"Young Master, I must insist. What is your name?" Heathcliff asked Tadashi directly.  
Tadashi glanced over at Fred before answering, "I was just dropping Fred off home. I'm not staying so there is no need." He would come back another day. From what he had gathered from Fred, his parents were rarely home. Fred sighed in relief, as did Tadashi. He didn't particularly want to meet Fred's father, if Professor Callaghan’s warnings were any indication, and Fred's reaction wasn't helping.

A loud voice from the top of the staircase boomed. "Fred? Is that you?" Before Tadashi had time to leave, the man the voice belonged to came into view.

"Heathcliff, who is this other young man? What am I paying you for?" He said half jokingly. Fred's dad looked older than he had expected, but he seemed quite spritely for a man of his age.

"I'm Tadashi Hamada, sir." Tadashi answered, saving Heathcliff. "I was actually just about to leave."

"Hamada, ay? I'm Stan Lee." He peered through his glasses and considered Tadashi for a moment. Even though Tadashi hadn't done anything wrong yet, the piercing eyes felt like they knew he had bad intentions.

"I suppose this is where $200,000,000 was signed off to?" He said, directing this question to Fred. Fred gulped, and nodded. Tadashi had hardly made a dent in the amount of money granted to him, but it was still a considerable amount of funds that he had tapped into.

"Hamada, was it? I want to talk to you in private. Follow me." Both Tadashi and Fred gulped.  
Mr Lee started walking back up the stairs. Fred muttered that he had better follow him.

"Step into my office Tadashi." He was instructed. It was ornate and cozy. The classic 'boss' master room with a dark interior, a nice desk with a portrait of young Fred and his parents on the wall. 

"Sit down, sit down, you're not in trouble." He was instructed and Mr Lee took the seat behind his desk.

"Let me look at you." He leaned in closer, Tadashi stared back blankly, a little uncomfortable. "You look more like your mother." He said, after a while, "You're taller than both of them and you inherited their good looks. Brilliant minds, both of them. It's a tragedy what happened to them."

Tadashi thanked him for the appraisal. This was the man in charge of the project that killed both his parents, and was the reason Hiro lost his sight and hearing. But he was also the man who was in charge for his finances at SFIT so it paid to be polite.

"So tell me about your project, Tadashi. My son signed off more than just pocket change to you."

Tadashi took a deep breath and explained everything he had been working on down to the minute details. It appeared that Mr Lee understood most of what he was saying, and only asked for clarification when a few medical points came up.

"It sounds like you already have a working prototype for most blind and deaf people. Why don't you focus on refining that?" He asked when Tadashi finished by saying what he was up to.  
It was true, he had done some clinical trials with those who had lost significant vision from decay. But all tests signified that Hiro’s condition was unique and what would work for most people did not apply to him.

"Because that's not good enough sir. This project... it's about everyone. There are some subjects that still can’t use Baymax." 

"You're lying, Tadashi. This project is personal, isn't it?" Mr Lee said sternly, calling him out on his bullshit.

"Yes, you're right. My little brother, Hiro... he's deafblind." He was sure that Mr Lee knew exactly who he was talking to and what his involvement was with the accident.

To his surprise Mr Lee conceded and apologised. 

"I'm truly sorry, about your brother. And your parents. I failed you, and your family. It should not have been up to my son to make this up to you all these years later. But you must understand, I was running a business at the time, it would have destroyed us if I had taken the blame... and the Government had their own cover up story. We weren’t even mentioned. And honestly, in time, I just forgot about the incident." Mr Lee sighed, the spritely energy he had held earlier had disappeared and he truly looked his age for a moment of insecurity.

His apology seemed so sincere, almost pleading for Tadashi to understand. And Tadashi could easily forgive him. He carried little hate in his heart. "It's okay Mr Lee. I forgive you."

 

"Thank-you, Tadashi. Is there anything else I can do for your family? Money isn't a problem. Anything to make your life a bit easier or anything that can help your project. Anything at all."  
Tadashi hesitated. Would he give him the serum if he asked for it? Callaghan seemed adamant that Mr Lee would not let him near it, and if he asked outright and was refused he would never find it as it would probably be shipped away to a different location.

But he seemed so sincere, absolutely nothing like what he had expected. He took the gamble. He had already created enough lies.

"Yes, Mr Lee. There is actually one thing you can do for me." He said, slowly.

"Not a problem. How much do you need?"

"It's not money that I need... but for Hiro... the serum that cured my brother. It was concluded that the onset of my brother's deafblindness was a symptom of that cure. If I had that, I could study, test and target the disease."

"I was afraid you would ask for that Tadashi." Stan sighed and swivelled around in his chair so that he was facing the portrait of his family. "I no longer have access to that serum."

Tadashi's heart sunk. He had gambled and lost.

"Tell me, is Callaghan still a teacher at the school? I haven't been keeping much track of it."

"Yes sir, he's the head teacher of Science."

"He also had a brilliant mind. I was shocked when he applied to teach. He was always proud, ambitious." He turned back around to face Tadashi. "I'm not lying when I say I no longer have access to the serum. I had it destroyed it. But I do know where you can find the ingredients. But you must promise to be extremely careful, it has airborne properties. Keep your testing small. It could be disastrous in the wrong hands."

"Yes, of course I will be careful. It will only be used for research. All I want to do is bring back my brother's senses."

Mr Lee gave instructions to Tadashi of where to find the formula. It was located on an off-shore private island that had been closed because of an unrelated experiment. "Take Fred with you, I'm glad that he's found a good friend. Heathcliff should know where it is, and I believe he has a key."

"Thank-you so much Mr Lee." Tadashi said. He couldn't believe the luck he had with running into Fred's dad today. He never would have found the formula in a house this large.

"My pleasure. If you need me for anything else, please inform Heathcliff. You may go now." As Tadashi was at the door Mr Lee called out, "Just one more thing. Keep the formula hidden from Robert Callaghan."

\---

“Wait, so let me get this right, so my dad was totally cool with your project?” Asked Fred for the uptenth time. They were in the back of a private helicopter which Heathcliff was piloting. Tadashi had told Fred exactly what happened and Fred suggested that they could go straight away. Tadashi agreed after checking on Hiro, who was safely at home.

“So we are totally going to like, a secret lair right now? And my dad said he wanted me to come? This is SO cool. Our first mission!” Tadashi wasn’t entirely convinced that Fred would be able to help too much when they were on the ground, but access to his private helicopter was certainly an advantage.

As they touched down, Tadashi observed that Fred was quite right in describing it as a secret lair. The tall barbed wire fence and isolated location made the grey concrete building appear especially foreboding and all the signs indicated it was a quarantine zone.

Heathcliff lead them to a side entrance. The door was electronic and the butler inputted a code. Electricity must have still be generating for the abandoned island as the panel responded by unlocking the steel door. The long man-made tunnel began activating lights which switched on in one after another in what must have been to at least the other side of the private island.

“Master Fred, I will leave you in the care of Mr Hamada. I will await for you in the helicopter.”

Fred and Tadashi looked at each other, and Tadashi decided to enter first. Even with the lights, it was a rather ominous setting. If he hadn’t of had Fred with him, he would have thought Mr Lee had sent him into a trap.

“So like, if I’m Batman, I guess that makes you my Robin.” Fred started chatting, his voice echoing around them. “Heathcliff is my Alfred. I guess that would make Hiro our Oracle.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Tadashi replied offhandedly. There was multiple heavy looking doors along the corridor. Tadashi stopped at the first one which and opened it. It was a huge metal warehouse, but whatever had been inside was no longer there.

He let Fred chatter as they continued to walk down the ominous corridor. At least six rooms had been completely emptied out before they reached something huge.

“Whoa… what’s that?” Fred asked, jaw agape at the giant circular remains of two machines. The one on the left looked like a rollercoaster track which had melted and the other was largely intact. Tadashi had no idea what it was.

“I’m not sure… but let’s keep going.” While it looked interesting, it was unlikely that whatever this machine was meant to do had anything to do with the formula he was looking for.

Fred had ignored him and was already heading up the stairs to what looked like a control room. Tadashi sighed and followed. He had to admit he was curious. It was rare to see tech made to such a large scale anymore. Most new inventions focused on being as tiny as possible.

He was immediately drawn to the monitor which was still on standby. Unlike the other rooms which had been extensively cleared, whoever had been here had left in a rush.

“That’s Alistair Krei from Krei Tech.” Tadashi narrated for Fred as they replayed some security footage.

 

“Yeah, I know.” Said Fred, “Our dads used to work together until our company had split off.” Krei Tech was one of the largest technology companies in the world. Mr Lee had been a partner for years but left the company and started his own soon after Alistair had taken over the business. “Hey, isn’t that Professor Callaghan?” Fred said suddenly, pointing to one of the screens.

Tadashi replayed the captured moment and zoomed in. He was with a young woman who couldn’t have been much older than college age. “Her name tag, it says Callaghan. Did you know he had a daughter?”

Fred shook his head, “Not since I’ve known him. But he’s only been at the school for a couple of years.”

They continued to watch in silence as everything went wrong with the portals.

“We better keep looking for your formula.” Fred said after a tense moment.

They left in silence. The hair on the back of Tadashi’s neck stood up, it felt like someone was watching them, but maybe it was just the eerie feeling of watching someone die.

The next few rooms yielded nothing, only more large, empty lots. They were almost at the other end of the tunnel and only had a few rooms left to search. Did Fred’s father lead them here just so they could see the video? But to what purpose?

He had almost given up until they reached a room which was a lot different from the rest. The door opened to a room about the size of his lab filled with rows of archive boxes. “It must be in here.” He told Fred.

“This is going to take forever. What are we meant to be looking for?” Tadashi shook his head. He wished he had more answers. He had no idea what the antidote was named.

He walked up and down the aisle. He noted everything was labelled not with a name but with a different symbol. The symbol of a sparrow struck his eye as it was the same symbol that was on the portal. It was unrelated, but he was curious. He lifted the box out to examine it and yet another symbol caught his eye. Something strikingly familiar but he couldn’t pick it.

Right next to the box was a tiny file in a manila folder. It was stamped with a green symbol of an eye with a blue tear. It was the Eye of Horus an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection, royal power and good health.

He opened the folder only to find a single piece of paper. It listed a complicated handwritten chemistry formula. He wished he had brought Honey Lemon with him.

“Is that it?” Fred asked, peering over his shoulder.

Tadashi nodded, “I think so, but I can’t be sure. Let’s go, I don’t think we’ll find anything else.”

He slipped the small file into the box with information on the portal. He didn’t have the time to be taking on an extra project to that extent, but once Hiro got his senses back it would be an amazing project to work on together.


	14. A New Angle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for hanging in there! Sorry this took so long to get out. There was a LOT I wanted to cover in this chapter. Honestly there is a lot I ended up editing out, but this still ended up quite long! Next chapter is probably going to be posted right after this one? It's basically done!

Ugh.

She had no idea what to do. She could hardly process what she saw.

Gogo sped home on her motorbike, away from the sick scene. She hardly felt the cold wind biting her, her purple hanbok billowing wildly behind her. Despite the danger she hadn’t stopped to pause and remove the floor-length skirt and she was hardly focused on where she was going. She should have done more to stop Tadashi, but she couldn’t face him. In spite of herself, she had fled.

Gogo had her suspicions that Tadashi was seeing someone else, she wasn’t an idiot. She had convinced herself she was just being bias from past experiences and Honey Lemon said she didn’t detect anything odd. 

But this...

She didn’t think he was fucking his own brother. Tadashi had always seemed so… wholesome.

It made her feel sick. She recounted the way Tadashi always talked fondly of Hiro. His devotion to his little brother now shone in a new light. She always thought he wore a cute expression when talking about Hiro, and had even envied the look hoping that one day he would look at her the same way. It now made her cringe. Suddenly her memories of him became a lot more sinister as she re-evaluated everything she knew. 

Tadashi Hamada was a predator.

Why did she always have to fall for vile people? She had a string of bad relationships, some even being part of gangs, but none had hurt her as much as this. She thought Tadashi would be the change of all that, finally a good person showing interest in her. So much for that.

The worst part was, Tadashi had already told her the truth. Not explicitly, but the signs were all there. And tonight when he showed up with Hiro all dolled up and clinging to Tadashi’s arm, looking every bit like he belonged there like a blushing bride she had started to put the pieces together and followed them when she noticed they had slipped away.

She should have fucking realised earlier. Tadashi had no time to see anyone else. When he wasn’t at school he was with Hiro.

But fuck, she didn’t want her suspicions to be true. She yelled angrily and incoherently into the night, angry tears clouding her vision and operating on instinct alone.

She kept reviewing the scene in her head. It almost looked like a painting. Tadashi had chosen a secluded area along the shores of San Fransokyo. It was once a popular scenic spot but had died down due to redevelopment of the area. It was well hidden and she had been extremely careful to not make a noise in her approach.

She had stood stunned and watched as Hiro and Tadashi were wrapped in each other’s arms. Hiro had offered no resistance and even seemed to even encourage the older boy. They were in a dark area of the city, the stars covering the sky in a vibrant blanket of light. The river was still, reflecting not only the lights of the city and bridge, but also the lanterns, lasers and colours of the festival from the opposite bank. The garden opening was a little overrun with vines and flowers, not being attended to for a few years. Their kimonos stood out, bold and elegant in the garden as the couple came together. It was hard to tell where one started and the other began. It was a twisted optical illusion, on the surface a harmless albeit public display of affection between two lovers, but sinister underneath a sinister incestual exhibit.

When she had finally collected herself she took a page out of Honey Lemon’s book and snapped a photo. She was relieved that the sound from her phone was enough to end their session because she didn’t trust her voice. Tadashi had broken apart from his brother immediately and had identified the source, meeting her directly in the eye. He had fear in his eyes. She had ran. She knew he was following but she had no words to say to him. She had to think.

“FUCK.” She yelled, running a red light and almost being taken out by a car. She pulled to the side, skidding to a stop, her heart beating even faster than before. She hadn’t even been wearing her helmet. Hell, she must have left it back at the gardens.

The car that she had veered in front of pulled up behind her. She half-hoped it would be an angry person. She would absolutely love to get in a fight right now.

She heard doors slam shut behind her and two pairs of feet hurried toward her. She swung off the bike and faced them, ready for confrontation.

“Gogo!” A familiar concerned voice cried out her name for the second time that night. “Oh no, you’ve been crying. Here I have some tissues.”

Cass. And not just Cass, but Callaghan too. Cass was shaking, clearly shocked that they had almost ran into her. What were the _fucking_ odds? Her life was just one big joke at this stage.

Gogo aggressively shook Cass’ hand off her shoulder as she tried to comfort her and asked if she was okay.

Should she tell Cass? Did she know about her nephews? She lived with them, surely she must have suspected something! If she knew about them, she was just as bad as Tadashi, maybe even worse.

And then it clicked.

…motherfucker.

Tadashi _fucking_ Hamada.

That sick bastard had used her to curve Cass’ suspicion.

She yelled in outrage at the realisation, angrily punching the nearby streetlamp. She didn’t hear Cass try and console her about the breakup or listen to Callaghan’s reprimands for being so reckless. She didn’t even feel her knuckles crack, bleeding from the force of the punch.

She jumped back on her bike and raced forward. She needed to get home and think.

She needed to plan her revenge.

Ugh.

She had no idea what to do.

But she knew it whatever it was, it was going to bloody hurt Tadashi Hamada.

\---

“Gogo? Are you alright?” Honey Lemon’s voice called through the otherwise eerily silent apartment.

They had been living together for nearly six months now. It wasn’t a big place, but it had cheap rent and was close to the school. Honey had a good relationship with her family who also lived nearby but she had agreed to move in with her new friend after Gogo’s previous relationship had gone south, and her friend didn’t have the best family support network. Besides, it was a lesson of independence! A new adventure.

She didn’t always approve of Gogo’s house guests. Her friends were generally a rowdy bunch. But she had hardly seen them lately and she suspected her budding relationship with Tadashi had helped that. She had fallen head over heels over that boy in such a short time. She didn’t approve of Tadashi leading her on, but she suspected he just had little experience with relationships and Gogo may have been a bit too a wild match for him.

She flicked the light on. The orange light started off dim, needing a while to warm up to its full brightness. She could see that Gogo had hardly made it through the door before she had stripped off her hanbok, leaving it in a pile to the floor right next to the door. This wasn’t unusual, Gogo was a little bit of a slob which is why they rarely invited Wasabi over. She had been resigned to being perpetually on dish duty. Honey Lemon wasn’t perfect herself, there was a distinct odour of her chemistry antics, as the ventilation was less than ideal in the apartment no matter how close to the balcony she worked. She was just glad that her friend had made it home.

Gogo herself wasn’t in the living room, but she did notice a bottle of tequila which hadn’t been out before which was missing a substantial amount of liquid considering the short amount of time it took Honey Lemon to get home.

She had been surprised when Professor Callaghan had called her. He had told her to go home to check on Gogo immediately because she had been driving upset and recklessly and if she wasn’t home to call him and the police.

“Gogo, are you in there?” She called out, walking over to Gogo’s door. There was no light from the other side but that didn’t mean anything.

“Go away.” Came the muffled reply followed by a soft thud which she assumed was a pillow thrown against the door. Her voice sounded raw, like she had been yelling.

“I'm coming in.” She said, ignoring the warning and opening the door. Her friend had a tendency to push people away when she needed them the most. Honey Lemon ducked, another pillow narrowly missing her head.

Gogo was sitting up, her legs under her black covered duvet, her face illuminated only by her cellphone. Honey Lemon softly closed the door behind her and approached. Gogo didn’t even look at her. She looked terrible.

For a brief moment Honey Lemon feared that Gogo had been injured. Her eyes were black and purple, looking bruised. It was a relief that as she got closer that she saw the reason for her appearance. She had obviously been crying. Her makeup was completely smudged, giving her the appearance of having bruises where she must have rubbed her eyes.

Honey Lemon was used to seeing Gogo mad. But this was different. She was genuinely hurt. She seemed to have been doing fine about the breakup throughout the week. She could only wonder at what was different tonight. She had seemed on edge when she had mistaken Hiro as a date, but that surely wasn’t enough to rattle her.

The tall girl sat down on the bed next to Gogo and put an arm around her. The smaller girl finally put her phone down and looked at her, making room so she could slip in beside her.

“What happened?” She asked Gogo soothingly, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“...It’s fucked up.” She whispered hoarsely.

“Gogo… I know you really liked Tadashi and it’s sad things didn’t work out. I'm sorry I didn’t realise how much this was affecting you. You come first to me. We can stop hanging out with him.” She liked Tadashi, and they were making some real progress on Baymax together, but she had to stick by her friend. She was confident that Tadashi would crack the code soon.

“No.” Gogo shook her head. “Just pretend everything is normal for now. You _need_ to work on Baymax. The sooner Hiro can see the better.”

This took her by surprise. Did she think that maybe if Hiro could see he would develop some independence and she could win Tadashi back?

“Here. Look for yourself.” She slurred, alcohol heavy on her breath as she handed over her phone to Honey Lemon.

A photo? She took the phone, not sure what she was seeing at first.

It wasn’t a very clear photo. But… those clothes were unmistakable. It was definitely a picture of Hiro and Tadashi. And they were close. Too close.

“Oh.” She said simply, realising exactly what she was seeing.

“Tadashi is a fucking _pedophile_.” Gogo said harshly.

“We… we should report this.” Honey Lemon said. But she wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do… Oh Gogo, the poor thing. And little Hiro, she saw the way he clung to him like his life depended on it. He had seemed to innocent and helpless.

“We can’t. Not yet.” Gogo said, sounding clearer now that she had a call to action, “I really want to but… I want him to fucking rot. But I’ve been thinking about it. It’ll fuck Hiro up even more if Tadashi gets arrested right now.”

“He still has his Aunt Cass, he won’t be completely alone. It’s our responsibility to tell the authorities, or at the very least Cass. She might not know… and there are other ways. They need help Gogo, they might not realise what they’re doing is wrong.” She reasoned.

Gogo laughed bitterly. “Cass is effectively useless. I think I’ve talked more to Hiro than she has in five years. And the only one who needs help is Hiro. Tadashi is probably a fucking psychopath.”

“Gogo… it might not be as bad as we think. They were just kissing, right? Maybe they--” Honey Lemon was interrupted by a cold laugh.

“You should have seen them. That wasn’t just innocent kissing.”

Honey Lemon still didn’t look quite sure and Gogo must have picked up on it because she continued. “Look, we should wait at least until Baymax is functional so at least Hiro has some chance of a normal life. Tadashi was expecting it to work within the year. And if it’s any consolation it looked consensual, it can wait for now.”

Consensual?

Of course it was. It was apparent that the brothers adored each other. And Hiro mostly knew the world through Tadashi. It was an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome. Just how long had Hiro been groomed into believing that what they were doing was normal?

“I do know one thing.” Gogo conceded, her eyes narrowed. “I want to rip out his heart.”

She felt lightheaded. The gravity of the situation was beginning to sink in. Suddenly the tequila outside seemed a lot more appealing.

\---

When Tadashi came home from his mission over at the mysterious island facility he was surprised to find Professor Callaghan and Aunt Cass sitting at the dining table. Tadashi was hyper aware of the files hidden inside his satchel, one file containing information Mr. Lee had forbade him to share with the Professor, and the other file which contained information on the portal.

The table had only been set out for two. “Hiro is upstairs. He didn't want to eat without you. I've left dinner out on the bench if you want to bring it up.” Aunt Cass chimed when she saw him enter, answering his question preemptively. Tadashi thanked her and greeted his professor, asking him to come up before he left.

Hiro was upstairs, already in his pyjamas and sitting up in bed. He was surprised as he usually found Hiro studying at his desk, but it looked like he was engrossed in a braille textbook. They had been largely outdated due to their cumbersome size and he hadn't seen Hiro use one in years.

Tadashi set the plates down at the desk. He signed to Hiro that he was there. Hiro smiled up at him sweetly and welcomed him home, tugging at his offered hand to pull him onto the bed. Tadashi pulled back, signing food and moving the braille book carefully off of Hiro so he wouldn't lose his place.

Hiro obediently followed him to the table. As they ate in a comfortable silence, Tadashi was reminded of how things were before they had become complicated. 

As usual he finished well before Hiro who took his time to carefully consume his dinner. Hiro tried to push his plate away early, as his appetite had been decreased ever since the festival. That usually happened whenever Hiro was stressed. He pushed back the plate and encouraged him to eat more, as he wasn't sure if Hiro was eating at school. He took out his phone and shot off a quick email to his school to keep an eye on his food consumption while he waited for Hiro to finish.

Three heavy knocks on the door alerted him that Professor Callaghan had come up. He told him to enter and quickly signed to Hiro that the professor was there. Hiro nodded and rolled in the computer chair to his computer, busying himself to let Tadashi talk.

Professor Callaghan entered and sat on Hiro’s bed. He was well dressed, clearly taking the date with his Aunt seriously. It was odd seeing him in a well-fitting suit and combed back hair when he was so used to seeing him in casual sweater vests and ill fitted pants. “Did you retrieve the formula?” He asked, getting straight to the point, leaning forward eagerly.

Tadashi nodded. He was wary of his eagerness after the warning words from Fred’s father. Professor Callaghan had done nothing to make him doubt him, but he occasionally got odd vibes that made him question his motives.

“Good. I expect you'll have Baymax suitable for Hiro’s condition within the month! We'll have to do some testing of course but I trust that you should be able to adapt what you have working to the new parameters.”

Tadashi swelled with pride that his professor had that much faith in him, but the timeframe was short. He wasn’t sure how quickly he could develop the serum, and if Hiro was anything to go by it took a long time, even years for the full effects to take hold of a subject.

He voiced his concerns with Professor Callaghan. While in an ideal world they would have the time to wait for proper incubation and testing, the best they could do was run simulations based on the formulas properties.

While it was impossible for there to be no risks, the beauty of Baymax is that it was non-intrusive with no surgery needed. All there really was to it was programmable contact lenses with a remote central processor. If Baymax failed, the worst it would do is not work. There weren’t many scenarios where Hiro's eyes could be damaged further. Meanwhile the audio aspect was underdeveloped and little more than a working theory and a few prototypes of a remodelled cochlear implant, and they both agreed it was too soon for human trial.

“As your Professor, I shouldn't be encouraging you to bend the rules, but now that I'm dating your Aunt, Hiro is like family now.” Professor Callaghan said smoothly. He had to be referring to the improper use of Baymax. Human testing would be forbidden without going through regular procedures which would take years to be approved. “From the moment you applied to SFIT and I saw your proposal, I knew that you would seek to use Baymax on your brother as soon as it was functional. How did it get the name, anyway? An acronym of some sort?”

“Oh, well, no… Fred has a habit of nicknaming things. It was actually going to be my nickname, but I convinced him to name the project instead.” And lucky he did too, it would have been awkward being called Baymax, or as Fred has embarrassingly said, ‘I should call you baemax, because you’re a bae, to the max. Get it?’.

It also wasn't the first time Tadashi had been warned of the rules. The other faculty members were also worried about how close he was to the project. He had always assured them that he would do everything correctly and follow the proper proceedings. 

“I won't stop you from trialling Baymax on Hiro. I can't help you for fear of losing my position, but I can leave your lab unlocked one night after hours when you're ready. If it works, I can’t imagine my colleagues will rule to take away Baymax from Hiro. You will be reprimanded, of course, but some of our best innovations have come from rule breakers.”

Tadashi thanked him profusely. It was a huge deal that Professor Callaghan was willing to put his career on the line for Hiro. Tadashi could live with being reprimanded, or even expelled, as long as Hiro could use Baymax and it was adequately functional. 

“You see, rules don't apply to people like you and me Tadashi, I've put together some ideas so you can improve Baymax. I'm not an expert, but from what you've told me, the adjustment period to regaining audiovisual senses is a difficult path. Once you've activated Baymax and it's working it could do with some upgrades, you could make Hiro's senses far superior than a normal person.”

He was handed a brief which he read through quickly. Some of the suggestions Professor Callaghan had proposed were nothing short of science fiction and reminded him of Fred's comic books. Why would Hiro possibly need heat tracking vision, video recording, or sonar detection? Some ideas were brilliant, like being able to control Baymax using subvocalization, and being able to receive information on people or objects in the same manner just by looking at them requesting specs. The scanning software reminded him of a project he was thinking of developing but had ultimately scrapped that involved a friendly healthcare companion.

Baymax certainly had the potential for such technological development, as the lenses were completely programmable. He may have been short-sided for not developing them to their full potential, but he could see the ethical drawbacks of essentially making an undetectable superpower. Currently similar technology existed, but none were fully integrated into something as discreet as contact lenses or a small cochlear implant. It might be fine if it were just Hiro, but it wouldn't be hard for someone to reprogram the equipment for use with sighted people. He was just glad that his work was so well encrypted, not even Professor Callaghan had access to what he didn't submit for review.

He felt Professor Callaghan watching him as he read through the proposal. Even if he were to integrate all of the functions, he wouldn't know where to start for half of it. His forte was in medical science, and he only had a moderate understanding about the technology behind some of the suggestions. And at the back of his mind he couldn't help but think of Mr. Lee's warnings. But he understood, the Professor was just trying to push him, he was barely halfway through his first year afterall. 

“Well, what do you think? I know some of the ideas are rather radical but I'm sure you'll be able to achieve most of the list with enough effort. You've already completed the hardest task in restoring vision, and I expect that you'll have programmed Baymax to be effective for Hiro's rare case soon.” What could he say? He couldn’t tell Professor Callaghan that the moment Hiro’s sight was restored that he most likely wouldn’t be able to keep attending SFIT due to a scandal.

“Thanks for this Professor, some of this will certainly be beneficial but I fear I wouldn't know where to start for most of this programming. Using subvocalisation for example is fascinating and I would love to implement it so Hiro would be able to control Baymax at will.”

“I agree, that would be the best place to start, especially when you start implementing other functions. I can of course help you with some of the functions.”

“No thanks Professor, I know you have enough on your plate already.” He respectfully declined. It was also unethical for a professor to be too involved in a student's work.

Professor Callaghan seemed disappointed, but Tadashi said he would definitely consider some of the suggestions. 

\---

The girls had agreed not to tell the others. Fred wasn’t mature enough to handle something like this, and Wasabi would probably tell the police straight away because he had a strong lawful moral compass. But what really worried her was Gogo, she could detect that she was planning something more than just turning over Tadashi to the proper authorities. She spent most of her time brooding, which was never a good sign. She considered it a personal attack, and she was using the extra time to cook up a plan for revenge and Honey Lemon wasn't privy to the plan.

Regardless, Honey Lemon redoubled her efforts with Tadashi on Baymax and they were working overtime together. Tadashi always had a tendency to skip some of his electives and he was surprised but grateful when she started joining him. She thought it would be hard to work with Tadashi and keep things normal, but he really was genuinely nice to be around and it was easy for the most part. She had been surprised when he came to her with a whole new task, asking her to help him develop some new formula that was different than the contact solution they had been formulating.

“There’s an open chess tournament on the weekend with a $500 prize I'm thinking of competing in. Do you play?” She asked Tadashi while they were taking a break, waiting while the beaker simmered. Gogo wasn’t interested in going and Wasabi had plans with his family. And despite what she knew, she had to act normal and she couldn’t bring herself to hate Tadashi.

“I saw the flyer for that. I'm a bit out of practice and I don’t think they’ll let Hiro use a modified set.”

Tadashi talked about his brother an awful lot, she didn’t find it particularly odd before the festival but it unsettled her now. His eyes always lit up and he spoke faster in excitement. She used to think he was just so proud of Hiro, but it was clearly more than that and she was shocked that she couldn’t see it before. His affection seemed genuine, and he did not give off a malicious energy like one would expect of a child predator. Even though Tadashi didn’t have the most social upbringing, he was instantly likeable and his handsome appearance helped increase his charisma even though he really did have an awful taste in fashion. She had to keep reminding herself that Tadashi Hamada was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“Hiro plays?” She asked, trying to keep the flow of conversation normal. It really did surprise her.

“Yeah, I modified a chess set for him years ago with braille. He was a natural at it!” Tadashi was always tinkering with things to make Hiro’s life easier. “There was a boy in my senior class. He was the President of the Chess Club. Hiro was only in the 7th grade. He didn’t believe me when I told him Hiro was better than me and ended up challenging him. He said Hiro had to be cheating somehow when he lost! You should have seen his face!”

Tadashi never spoke about his own achievements. So much of his identity was wrapped up with his brother, and she couldn’t help but notice that even Aunt Cass was rarely mentioned in these stories. It was easy to imagine how Tadashi developed romantic feelings for Hiro, his adolescent upbringing was focused solely on his brother. It was like he didn’t have time for anything else.

“You’re really close with Hiro, aren’t you?” She asked probing just a little further.

“Of course. He means the world to me!” He was surprised that she had to ask.

“What was it like growing up together? I mean, we’ve heard all the good stuff but it must have been hard. You’ve given up a lot for him, haven’t you? Did you ever feel like you were missing out?” 

He shook his head, now frowning.

“You know, it’s funny. When I was growing up I had a lot of advice from teachers telling me I was wasting my potential. Aunt Cass felt the same way. It was like she already had one nephew she couldn’t relate with, and she didn’t need two. People treated Hiro like he was some big burden to me and all they could do was look at Hiro with pity, no matter how well he did.” He sighed. “After a while, Hiro began to feel the same way and has lost some confidence in his own ability. He was old enough to remember what it was like having his sight and hearing, so he really does miss it. It may have been different if he was born that way, but he’s aware of what he’s missing out on and it frustrates him from time to time even though he does his best to grin and bare it.”

He rubbed his temple. He seemed sad, and he certainly looked extremely tired. The only time she had heard him speak about Hiro like this was when she had first met him, when he was appealing to them for help. He was usually quite optimistic, if a little quiet.

“But I’ve always been the lucky one. I'm healthy. The least I could do was look after him! And I did that because I wanted to. When I was younger all I could do was help him by doing simple things like tutor him or translate things into braille. But I’ve studied ophthalmology, audiology and even neurology for years even though I was told time and time again that it was a waste of time and I should focus on schoolwork. And do you know what the worst part is?”

She shook her head. 

“They were right. I was wasting my potential. Would you believe I had won a scholarship to SFIT? I wasn’t even the best in my class, let alone the year. But they said they saw something in me.” He laughed hollowly, but he didn’t smile. “They said I would do good things and follow my dreams.”

From what she knew of Tadashi, they had graduated in the same year. If he was awarded the scholarship shouldn’t he have started with the rest of them?

“I wasted that opportunity. I told myself I was better off spending more time with Hiro. If he hadn’t of pushed me I wouldn’t have applied. I wasted an entire year. If I had applied back then… Hiro might be able to see and hear right now.” He said bitterly.

“Oh Tadashi… you know that’s not true…” Very few students got through on a scholarship, and those who did were usually assigned a preassigned thesis project by a professor. The majority of the student intake came from the annual SFIT convention. “It just wasn’t the right time for you.”

She sighed. He really loved his brother, didn’t he? If he had only wanted to molest him… it wouldn’t make sense to try so hard to get his senses back. It was something that was bothering her, wasn’t Tadashi afraid that Hiro wouldn’t be as close to him if he could see and hear?  
It was an uncomfortable relationship if she only looked at the surface. Hiro was a vulnerable youth who was an easy victim who depended on Tadashi. She was sure that he would believe anything Tadashi told him and would probably do anything to please him.

But Tadashi… he also worshipped Hiro. It wasn’t so simple, was it? Tadashi was only young too, and he had grown up isolating himself and focusing on only one thing. She remembered the way he looked at Hiro. It never seemed lustful or malicious, just love. In a way, they were both victims of circumstance.

“Once Baymax works, everything is going to change. Are you okay with that?” She wasn’t only referring to Hiro’s sight. They were likely going to be separated. He probably already feared the worst, knowing what Gogo had saw.

“I know. It’ll take Hiro time to catch up, but he’s going to do great things in this world. If someone’s going to invent time travel or teleportation, it’s him. It wasn’t just Hiro who was robbed when he lost his senses, but the world was robbed too. I’ve been lucky enough to have him for the past 14 years, but he deserves so much more.” 

She couldn’t handle this anymore. She needed to ask more direct questions. She wasn’t so sure if separating the brothers was the right thing to do. She reached over and turned the fire off completely.

“Tadashi.” She said, her tone a lot more serious than usual and looking him dead in the eye. “Gogo told me what she saw.”

He nodded. She noted that he was tense. His jaw set firm. She had taken him by surprise.

“I need to know… it wasn’t a one-off incident, was it?”

He shook his head, flustered. “No… I… we…” He muttered.

“It’s okay. I understand. But you need help Tadashi... both of you do.” She put her hand over his, a sense of pleading in her tone. The brothers were just confused. It made sense. In a world where it felt like they only had each other. She was sure that whatever was between them wasn’t intentional… it probably just happened, a build up of pent up hormones and emotions with nowhere to go except for each other. It was just a set of unusual circumstances that led to something unnatural. They just needed some outside support!

“Does anyone else know?” He asked, he sounded defeated. He wanted to know how much time he had.

“No. Just Gogo and I… but…” She hesitated, what if she was wrong about warning him? No, she had to. “We were planning on telling Cass and giving the evidence over to the police once Baymax was completed, but… oh, be careful. I'm worried that Gogo might be planning something sinister. She really hates you.”

He nodded, his mouth set in a grim line. He didn’t seem surprised. “And what about you? Do you hate me?”

“No! Of course not!” She didn’t think that what they were doing was right, but she couldn’t hate him. 

But maybe she should? Was her reaction normal?

“Thanks for telling me, Honey Lemon. And for helping with Baymax.” He moved his hand away from her, returning his focus back to the beaker and adding in a few more ingredients. He had provided no context for what they were concocting right now and hadn’t even revealed the full recipe, but he had asked for her guidance and promised it was Baymax related, although she couldn’t see how.

“I need you to promise me something… if I’m no longer around, please look out for Hiro. He’ll need help adjusting and he’s never been alone before. Show him how wonderful life is and help him forget about me.”

“Tadashi… of course, I’ll do my best.” She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

They had a mechatronics class next, which was one of her electives even though it wasn’t relevant to her chemistry major. She was glad when Tadashi separated himself, allowing her to sit with Gogo.

She had to be sure about something. She didn’t know Hiro well enough, and it wasn’t good enough to just take Tadashi’s word. What if he was being forced to do things against his will?

She remembered their group chat and took out her phone. She glanced at the clock. Hiro should be at lunch now. Would he be on his device? She looked to her side. Gogo was invested into staring icy daggers at the back of Tadashi’s skull.

She tried privately messaging Hiro using the app they had used at the festival. She wasn’t sure if it would work, or if Hiro would even be able to respond.

_Honey Lemon: Hi Hiro. Are you on recess?_

She kept an eye on Tadashi in case he was linked up at all. The phone on his desk didn’t light up from a notification. She looked down and was surprised to already see a reply.

_Hiro: Yes. How’s Tadashi? Did something happen?_

She smiled sadly. They really were related.

_Honey Lemon: I just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. If you ever need to talk to someone other than Tadashi you have your Aunt Cass and even me or Gogo. We care for you._

_Hiro: So Gogo told you? Have you told anyone else?_

He caught on surprisingly quickly. She had always pictured Hiro as an innocent kid, or at the least naive from lack of visual stimulation. She had to remind herself that he was fourteen, turning fifteen and with quite an intelligent mind. It was as Tadashi said, she was underestimating him just because of perceived disabilities.

_Honey Lemon: Yes Gogo told me what she saw and showed me the photo. And no we haven’t told anyone. Not yet._

_Hiro: Firstly, is the photo legible? And you said not yet, is that a threat? What will it take to make this go away? I’ll do anything and so will Tadashi._

She wished it was just her. Her ideal intervention would be to calmly discuss things with Aunt Cass and suggest therapy. But she couldn’t imagine Gogo being happy with anything less than incarceration. 

_Honey Lemon: No Hiro, please don’t misunderstand. We just want the best for you. I don’t know what Tadashi has taught you but it’s not normal to be intimate with your sibling. He’s taking advantage of you._

_Hiro: You might not have noticed but I'm not normal._  
  
This wasn’t going how she expected. How should she respond? She had to approach this delicately. She was midway through typing when another message was sent through. Not just one, but many.  
__  
Hiro: Please just leave us alone.  
Hiro: I love Tadashi and he is mine.  
Hiro: If you tell the police they’ll take him away, won’t they? I will never forgive you.  
  
Even if she didn’t tell anyone… the ball was out of her court. Gogo wouldn’t let it rest.  
__  
Hiro: Tadashi has never made me do something I didn’t want to do if that’s what you’re worried about.  
Hiro: Tadashi makes me feel good!

Honey Lemon blushed and turned her phone over. Gogo had stopped her intense staring and glanced at Honey Lemon who waved her away. She took a deep breath and looked at her phone again. Her blush deepened. Hiro had described in explicit detail the things he had done to Tadashi to seduce him. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, the passionate language was a little disturbing coming from the sweet kid she had seen at the festival.  
_  
Honey Lemon: I promise I won’t tell anyone._

She was convinced. She still felt like the brothers needed help because what they were doing wasn’t healthy, but she was more than assured that Hiro wasn’t a helpless victim and Tadashi didn’t deserve prosecution.  
_  
Hiro: Thank-you. And what about Gogo?_

Honey Lemon had no power over Gogo. When she had set her mind on doing something, she was like a bull charging at a matador, unable to change direction. But perhaps she did have a soft spot - instead of ruthlessly exposing Tadashi straight away she had chosen to wait for Hiro’s sake. Maybe Hiro’s passionate words would convince her to back off? She scrolled up and nudged Gogo, sliding the phone to her.

Gogo raised an eyebrow but began to read the thread. Her expression was eerily passive, even when she got up to the part where Hiro was vividly describing knocking down Tadashi’s defences to get sexually closer. She passed the phone back, her face stony.

She had seen that expression before, but she had only seen it when she heard Gogo utter the words that had sent a chill to her spine. _”Rip out his heart.”_

She didn’t mean Hiro, did she? She vowed she would delete the photo off of Gogo’s phone. She just had to hope she didn’t have a backup.

 

\---

_Don't worry about guiding Hiro home today. I'm picking him up from school early because he's feeling a little sick._

On top of everything, Hiro was sick? He sighed and texted his Aunt back to send him more information.

Ordinarily he would have left SFIT immediately to make sure Hiro was fine, but not only was he rapidly working on a breakthrough for Baymax but he was under Gogo’s watchful eye.

Thanks in part to Tadashi’s interest in his nutrition, Hiro didn't get sick very often, but when he did it was a stressful ordeal for the two brothers. A symptom as simple as a clogged nose was troublesome as it took away one of his remaining senses.

Fevers and nausea were particularly trying but the worst situation he had to handle was when Hiro contracted the chicken pox. It had been in a period before they had mastered a form of communication, and Hiro had been unable to comprehend what was happening to his body and why he wasn't allowed to scratch.

Since retrieving the serum formula, every test he had done so far had a positive result. He had the data calibrated based on Hiro’s vital information. Admittedly Baymax was still incomplete. He was having issues with getting an auditory response, but he had considered that a secondary issue. Vision was his first goal.

He worked hard, knowing full well that the closer he got to Baymax’s completion, the sooner Gogo would move to be rip them apart. 

It was a non-issue. He wouldn't let them be separated.

He had a decent amount of cash saved up from the cafe and the odd jobs he had in his gap year. He wasn't at SFIT for a degree, he was just using it for his resources. It wasn't beneath him to leave and disappear with Hiro.

But it was incredibly hard to disappear in a world with cameras able to detect suspects everywhere. It would definitely be considered a kidnapping and they would have limited time to get as far away as possible once reported.

He knew it was risky. But if he let the situation play out naturally, he could think of no result where the brothers could continue being with each other. 

He could face what he had done head on and accept the consequences. He felt like he more than deserved it, but Hiro didn't. Even if Baymax was functional, his brother would need emotional support and a teacher he could trust to learn a new visual world. It's not like vision was something that could just be turned on with immediate comprehension of how to process the data. It was an overwhelming process that had documented cases of driving people to madness.

No, escaping was the only way.

His computer chirped a happy “bing”. He smiled, the sound indicating another successful test. 

Tadashi stood from his desk and stretched his arms up, releasing the tension in his shoulders. He left his computer to run some diagnostics and headed over to the printer to review the results.

His phone buzzed again and he quickly checked it, expecting an update from Aunt Cass.

_Hiro’s home now. He's upstairs tucked into bed. He just has a slight temperature but seems mostly okay. I'll cook some of my famous pork broth soup tonight!_

His phone buzzed again, this time from Hiro.

Come home we need to talk.

That was a little ominous. Tadashi turned off his screen and let his programs continue to work and quickly packed his bag. He collected the printout of the latest testing diagnostics for review.

He almost walked right into Wasabi as his secure lab closed behind him.

“Hey man, how you doing?” Wasabi said affectionately. “You've been cooped up in your lab a lot lately. Haven't gotten to see you much outside of class.” Tadashi in the past had used the common lab more often.

“Yeah, I've been really busy!” He certainly looked busy, flustered from leaving so quickly.

“Yeah, Honey Lemon mentioned that you're nearly there. And I bet you’re trying to avoid You-Know-Who.” He ended in a whisper. He couldn't agree more. “Anyway, I just came over to give you this. Just a few small improvements!”

Wasabi handed him a USB which he recognised as the one he had given him a few weeks earlier. He had forgotten that he had asked Wasabi to look over his work!

“Thanks Wasabi. It means a lot.” He slipped it into his pocket. “Let's talk later, I'm in a bit of a rush.”

“I'll walk with you.” Wasabi said, matching his brisk pace. “So where are you running off to? We've only got half an hour before the next class.”

“Hiro has gone home from school sick. Aunt Cass has to run the cafe so no one's home to look after him.”

“We have Professor Synetra next and she's quite strict with attendance. You already missed out on her lesson last week because you were caught up in your lab.”

“Hiro is more important.”

“More important than you graduating? You won't even be able to begin clinical trials until your third year! Think about the long-term.”

He couldn't tell Wasabi that he had zero plans of graduating or staying that long. 

“Look, Tadashi… just try and keep Honey Lemon out of it. She hasn’t been talking to me lately and she’s been spending a lot of time with you…”

He assured Wasabi that there was nothing going on between them and he excused himself from Wasabi to make his way home as fast as he could.

“Tadashi! Hiro is fine, he’s just upstairs.” Aunt Cass said bustling over to him, weaving through the tables to meet her nephew.

He greeted her with a quick peck on the cheek and quickly headed up taking the stairs three at a time. He dumped his bag by the door and hastened inside.

Hiro wasn't sick in bed like he had expected. He was crouched in front of his wardrobe, still in his school clothes, surrounded by some clothes and other odds and ends, his hands searching for something. Hiro really had been acting odd lately, but it wasn’t surprising. He was even more worried about Gogo than Tadashi was.

He stilled as Tadashi approached, the vibrations from the floor signalling his approach. Tadashi touched his shoulder and he felt the boy relax, leaning into his touch. He wondered what Hiro was trying to achieve.

“Tadashi! Good, you're here! We need to leave. Let's get out of San Fransokyo as soon as we can.” Hiro sprouted rapidly, recognising Tadashi’s touch. Tadashi had to slow him down and ask him to repeat everything. Even Tadashi was unable to understand Hiro when he spoke to fast with his imperfect inflections. “We have to go. I tried finding the suitcase but… I guess I should have just waited.” He said more slowly, sounding defeated.

Tadashi crouched down next to Hiro and the teen happily wrapped his arms around his neck. The older boy slipped his arm under Hiro’s knees and easily lifted him up into a bridal pose and carried him over to Hiro’s bed, which was nearest.

Once sat it was easier for them to communicate.

“Tell me what happened.” Tadashi requested. What had caused the sudden panic? 

“Honey Lemon contacted me. Gogo’s been spreading around what she saw and she has picture evidence. It’s really bad ‘Dashi. I’ve spent some time before you came home researching about the laws and… it’s really against us, isn’t it? Even if I testify that I wasn’t coerced… they won’t believe me, will they? We should leave, as soon as possible.”

Hiro was right and there was no point hiding things from him.

“You’re absolutely right Hiro. It’s not looking good, your big brother really messed things up bad this time.”

“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed you start this… any of this. Us. I pushed you and pushed you! It’s just because I was selfish and… it just feels right with you.”

“What?! No! Don’t you ever, ever blame yourself! Hiro, if this doesn’t work out, you need to know that none of this was your fault. Absolutely none of it. Whatever happens, you’re going to be fine. You are so, so smart and it’s going to be hard, but you’ll be okay. If I go away you need to promise me you’ll move on.”

“You know that I can’t promise that. Let’s go, right now.” His eyebrows were knitted together, insulted that Tadashi would ever suggest that there was a chance they wouldn’t stay together.

“Hiro, we can’t just leave right now. But we will, soon. I promise.”

“Good. I figured you would want to be careful. I suppose we need new identities and a place to lie low? I’ve been thinking, if you haven’t arranged new IDs yet it might be useful getting two for me. Do you know anyone that can help us with that? There must be someone on our side. They’ll be on the lookout for two brothers, and our descriptions will be too obvious, how many blind 14 year old boys can there be? I was thinking, the night of the festival, everyone said I passed as a girl, right? It might be useful if I wear female clothing in public.”

Tadashi blushed, remembering how beautiful Hiro looked in his kimono. With his long hair which was beginning to pass his chin because Tadashi hadn't found time to cut it and his demure personality he certainly would pass as a girl in the right clothing. The grown out hair even framed his face quite nicely, even if the bangs were a little long, brushing his eyelids. Even his voice was unusually soft, due to his shyness and being only used to their private conversations. He wondered if Hiro would have felt as casual about crossdressing if he had grown up with vision. He knew Hiro had a vague understanding of gender roles, but he never seemed to care much for them.

“Yes Hiro, you can pass if you dress appropriately. You’re right, for now I'll put you in front of your computer so you can complete some schoolwork. I'm going to start arranging some things.”

It would have to be this weekend. Not even Honey Lemon knew how close Baymax was to working, and that gave him a slight advantage. He couldn’t tell Hiro what he was working on, even though he knew he should prepare him… but if Baymax didn’t work, he didn’t want to get Hiro’s hopes up. And he had decided, even if it failed, he would leave with Hiro. They couldn’t be separated.

As usual Hiro was right. They needed help. But who could he trust? Honey Lemon was understanding but wouldn't help them break the law and Wasabi wouldn't take the news well either… and he needed someone with resources.

Of course, the answer was obvious. He picked up his phone and called the only friend he could completely trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to those hoping that Hiro would get his vision back in this chapter. It kind of dragged on quite a while and I wanted to explore some of the things that were missed in the previous chapter. In this chapter we get to see a lot about what the other characters are up to and how their reacting to the chain of events. While it’s not strictly necessary, I still wanted to give you insights to some of the non-Hiro or Tadashi characters. This was experimental in a lot of ways so I’m interested in hearing your opinions! I don’t think I’ll be doing this too often, but it was interesting at looking at things through a new angle.  
> As always please leave a comment! They make me happy (:


	15. My Innocent Eyes

PAIN.

Pain like he had never felt before seared coursed him, firing up his long dormant nerves. Electrons regenerating, a system getting a painful reboot like an electric shot.

He was yelling, screaming. His lungs feeling raw even though his own cry for help was deaf on his own ears. He could feel his voice screaming out in agony. He was screaming a name. Tadashi. 

Tadashi, why?

Bright light shone into his eyes, but it wasn’t like how light normally affected him. Usually, lights caused random abstract shapes to dance behind his eyelids which never really made any sense.

But this time? He could actually see white, and it really really hurt. The brightness seared directly into his brain, a pain he hadn’t felt before attacked him as his neurons attempted to regenerate a system which had long been abandoned.

It was like staring directly into the sun, but it felt a lot more intense. This must have been how a vampire felt seeing sunlight for the first time in a thousand years right before he was about to die. With the clamps in his eyes he was unable to close his eyelids for reprieve.

But just as quickly as it had started, the pain stopped. The bright light had dimmed. At some point he must have been released from the eye clamps as his eyes were now clenched shut tightly. Safe. Protected.

But even with his eyes closed, something was different. It wasn't the darkness he was used to and it had taken on a new quality. A color. 

Color? When was the last time he had seen color? It was… red?

The bright redness which penetrated his eyelids slowly dimmed to a black. Was he… was the light coming through his eyelids? 

He must have been covering his face, as he felt the familiar calloused but gentle hands prying at his smaller fingers. Hands shaking, he hesitantly let Tadashi take them.

“It’s okay Hiro. I'm here. Try opening your eyes again. It won't hurt this time, I promise.” 

 

He was scared but he felt reassured with Tadashi this close to him and still holding his hand. And he was close, Tadashi’s knee rested in between Hiro’s thighs on the modified dentist chair.

He slowly relaxed his clenched eyes, and with a bit more encouragement opened them.  
He blinked rapidly, another unusual feeling. His eyes still hurt a bit, like a dull throbbing in his skull, but… they working!

He could see? He could see!

Although, he wasn’t too sure what he was seeing just yet. A blurry face. It had to be... 

“‘Dashi?” He queried, unsure, but it couldn’t be anyone else. He released one of his hands which were slippery from his panicked sweat, bringing it up to touch the face in front of him.

He knew his brother by touch, and he knew what he used to look like when they were kids but now with that he was presented with this stranger in front of him he was uncertain.

But this really was him! And that… that was his own hand?! He knew that amputees sometimes felt like they had phantom limbs. He wondered if it felt anything like this? He knew he always had hands of course and he had even seen his hands before but... this was all just really weird. Everything about this was absurd. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had a visual dream this vivid.

Tadashi’s lips were moving but he couldn’t understand him. He had read that people who were hearing impaired were sometimes good at reading lips, but it was clearly a learnt trait rather than inherent because he had absolutely no idea what Tadashi was saying. It was interesting to watch, at least.

Hiro moved his hand from the strong jaw to his brother’s mouth, trying to readjust for the Tadoma method. Yes, those lips were definitely Tadashi’s! He frowned, with his eyes open he couldn’t seem to find the sweet spot required to understand him, why was this harder? He closed his eyes briefly, surprised to feel a couple of tears drop, and quickly readjusted his fingers to the familiar position in less than a second.

“Did it work? Can you see?” He felt the questions form. Hiro nodded, opening his eyes again. He realised that even though he could see, it was too dark to properly see his brother’s facial features. 

 

“Here, take this. You can use this to adjust your vision.” He was handed a device that he hadn't noticed before sitting on the tray next to him. It was about the size of a portable radio, and surprisingly heavy. Like a radio, the white device had buttons and knobs on it. He wasn’t quite sure what they all did, but he quickly found that the device was labelled with illuminated visual words which he realised with a pang that he couldn't read. Most people couldn’t remember things that had happened to them before the age of 4, but it still came as a disappointment that he couldn’t at least identify the letters. He was sure he had learned the alphabet, he had been an advanced kid. His fingers quickly found the braille underneath the words and he identified a few options such as ‘clarity’ and ‘color’.

He tested the device and discovered he could control the brightness and clarity of his vision to alarmingly extreme levels. Turning everything down brought on a similar darkness to shutting his eyes. He decided to test the limits and amped up the brightness. Night turned into day and the dark room around him became illuminated, but fortunately not in the painful way like before. He noticed for the first time the hair in front of his eyes and brushed it out of the way, tucking it behind his ear. 

He continued to stare at the device, almost afraid to look up. His heart was beating unnaturally fast. Tadashi was right there. Why was he stalling?

He took a deep breath and looked up, meeting eye contact with big light brown eyes.

Tadashi!

It finally really sunk in.

His heart was pulsing rapidly. He had always imagined what Tadashi would look like, but as the years progressed it became harder and harder for him to picture. It was a downside of his rapid adjustment to dealing with deafblindness, resulting in an increase of neurogenesis because the new memories outcompeted the old less ‘useful’ memories.

Tadashi was no longer the young boy blowing out his birthday candles, but a fully grown man. He looked closer to how he had remembered his father who had still been quite young when he had passed, than the boy he had known when they were kids.

“How? I thought… the doctors said it was impossible?” He asked, flabbergasted. “Wait… don’t worry. Tell me later. Where are we going now? What’s the plan?”

 

\---

With his examination finished, which had involved a quick check up on his readings with some unknown devices and some quick questions regarding his visual recollection (which was decidingly abysmal although Tadashi didn't seem concerned), Tadashi began scurrying around picking up bits and pieces into what he guessed was a suitcase. Hiro watched on, wanting to help but unable to tell what was needed to be done. It was a little frustrating, and he somehow felt even more useless than usual.

Hiro with some effort finally tore his eyes away from his brother and looked around the room to see if he could identify anything else. Colours he remembered which was a relief. Some shapes and objects were familiar, books, tables, chairs, the basic things he could remember from his early childhood. Other shapes remained a mystery to him, but maybe he would recognise them if he touched them? But he better not touch anything without permission, things could be dangerous in a lab.

He sighed and looked down at his hands. His own hands! At least he knew exactly who he was. It felt so peculiar. He wriggled his fingers and he could actually see them. Weird. It made him feel a little nauseous. His hands didn't really feel like his own. He had come across the expression of ‘knowing something so well like the back of your own hand’ in books before but it was like these belonged to a stranger. And it looked like they were shaking? He closed his eyes, briefly taking himself back to his familiar world unable to trust his own vision. Yes, they were. A panic attack? No, he wasn't frightened. It was probably just pure excitement. He would have to get used to the disconnect between what he felt and what he saw.

Something moved toward him and edged into his vision. He looked up and saw Tadashi again. His brother reached out and cupped both of his hands, holding them still. That expression, a slight frown and those soft eyes - it must have been concern, worry. Hiro looked down at both of their hands. Tadashi was fingerspellling something to him. Why was it so much harder to decode with his eyes open? Hiro knew why, he was completely distracted by Tadashi, but knowing didn’t make it any easier. He admired the lines of his brother’s hands, quite a lot bigger than his own, and taking in as much detail as he could. They gracefully moved against his own skin. He finally decoded the message _Are you okay?_ the hands kept asking him.

He looked back up to look at Tadashi's beautiful face. The look of worry was still there. Hiro nodded and smiled, hoping that would be enough. He couldn't trust himself to speak, he was a little overwhelmed and it felt like his throat was closed up. Tadashi asked him another question. _Do you want me to turn the device off?_ A part of him wanted to turn it off. He really _really_ wanted to. What he saw was confusing and his head was pounding and he didn't understand this world anymore. But he felt better when he looked at Tadashi, and he owed it to him to keep it turned on longer. And what if it was a one-time deal?

Tadashi seemed pleased when he said he would keep it on, the corners of his mouth lifting. More touching on his hands? Straining to understand, the sensation of extra sensory clouding his understanding, Hiro closed his eyes. _We have to go._ Tadashi spelled. Hiro nodded again, eyes reopening and he got to his feet, a little unsteady.

Tadashi gave him a small backpack to wear and put the device inside of. He was told to keep it on him at all times, even if they got separated. Hiro didn't like the sound of that last part, but he didn't protest. Tadashi had a big backpack himself and a suitcase but he held out his free hand and Hiro gladly took it, admiring how their fingers laced together. Tadashi smiled down at him and he grinned back. He didn't know where they were going but as long as it was just them he didn't care where he was.

Tadashi set a brisk pace. Hiro tried to watch his brother while they were walking but it was unbalancing, and if it wasn't for Tadashi's grip he probably would have stumbled so he quickly decided to cast his eyes down and focused on their footsteps. Left, right, left, right. His shoes plodded along, taking small, but quick steps to match Tadashi’s long strides. He began feeling the wave of nausea again but tried to push it away. He closed his eyes again and looped his free arm around Tadashi's. The pace slowed to accommodate the new position, but they didn't stop.

After a few minutes they paused, cool air was now on his skin. Tadashi told him to prepare to be lifted and he was picked straight up around the middle with one strong arm. Curious, Hiro opened his eyes again. They were outside the building and Tadashi was carrying him and the luggage down a flight of marble stairs. He looked up, the sky was dark, with a few scattered stars and a half moon. He knew the moon was about 240,000 miles away and the stars infinitely further, but now that he could see them, they didn't look very far away at all.

When they reached the bottom he was place down carefully. There was a big black car with dark tinted windows that he couldn't see into. The door slid open and Hiro tentatively climbed inside as gestured by Tadashi who quickly followed him. He couldn't see the driver, as there was a divider separating the front from the back. Hiro gripped his brother's hand tightly. The trembling had come back. He leant against Tadashi and closed his eyes again, focusing on his breathing. He had to stay calm, he knew his brother had to stay focused.

If he had hoped to sleep he had been mistaken. The trip was much shorter than he anticipated, there was no way they had even left the city. Tadashi unbuckled Hiro’s safety belt and got out first leaving Hiro to follow. No sooner than the door shut behind him did the SUV take off again. There was another black car waiting for them, smaller this time but still with the same tinted windows. Tadashi guided him to sit into the back again. This time he could see the driver, and he felt comfortable and quickly averted eye contact. The driver had shoulder length blonde hair, and some sort of green hat. The driver had craned his neck around to look at him, and waved madly, and Hiro reluctantly glanced back at him. His lips moving, trying to talk to him. Hiro simply stared back, unsure of how to respond. His brother was loading his large briefcase and the backpacks into the trunk. He looked nothing like Tadashi, although he was only going off of a full data pool of two subjects. Tadashi was much better looking, he decided.

Hiro was a little shocked when Tadashi sat in the passenger seat next to the driver. They spoke a little bit and must have been friends, but at least the driver's attention was diverted now. If he had to guess from the way he was acting he was most likely Fred. Tadashi looked back to check on him, and motioned to Hiro’s seatbelt which he had forgotten to fasten. He inwardly chided himself, he knew better than that!

They started driving again and this time he managed to look away from his brother and turned his attention to the window. The world outside moved quickly and he felt another wave of nausea. He had never really liked cars but now it was for a different reason. He was seeing but not comprehending what he saw. He knew it was the street, and buildings but there was a lot of other shapes to take in and the speed it blurred by unsettled him. He averted his eyes and buried his head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. He still felt sick, but at least it wasn't any worse than what car travel normally felt like.

Before he knew it, the car had pulled to a stop. It was another quick trip. Part of him was grateful, as he wasn't sure how long he could hold back throwing up in the stranger's car, but he was also really worried. They had to get out of the state, maybe even the country. Was it safe to stop so close by? He loved Tadashi, but lately he hadn’t been the best at decision-making.

Hiro finally raised his head off of his hands when he felt Tadashi unbuckle his safety belt. Hiro wrapped his arms around his brother’s neck and he was scooped out of the car and into his strong arms. They were indoors to what looked like a luxury car dealership. Fred lead them into the house, carrying the briefcase and backpacks.

The house looked just as big as what he had seen of SFIT, but much less clean cut and with stranger ornaments. He didn't pay too much attention, looking at his brother calmed him down. He admired his profile, taking in the details of his strong jaw and determined eyes. His hair was cropped rather short and he could see his ears. His face was smooth except for a couple of stray hairs on his chin that would be plucked as soon they broke the surface.

The brothers were shown into a guest room. It was expansive with mahogany furniture, a large bed and a door that was probably an attached ensuite. Fred and Tadashi exchanged a few words before the door was shut. Hiro exhaled, glad they were finally alone.

Tadashi placed Hiro down and immediately began unpacking. Feeling like he was in the way Hiro walked over to the bed, kicking off his shoes and socks before diving on top of the covers. He sank into the soft luxurious fabric, which felt much nicer than he used to. He smiled into the duvet, his actions just now sinking in. He had just entered a new place, walked from point A to point B unaided, without having to touch walls, use a stick or any other form of assistance! 

Up until that moment, the only thing he had really liked about being able to see again was seeing Tadashi. The rest felt busy, and frankly gave him a headache. He had always wished he would be able to see and hear again, knowing full well just how more convenient it was, but he had long given it up as possible. It had always irritated him that the world most people perceived was out of his reach.

He rolled over onto his back, and stared up at the ornate ceiling. That thing on the roof, it had to be a fan. Switches were usually at the door. He looked over to check and did notice some small mounted plastic bits next to the door in white. Some of those would be light switches, he guessed. Funnily enough, he never had much use for light switches. 

He sat up to see if there was anything else he could identify. The bedside table had a box on it with something coming out of it. He reached out and touched it. It felt like tissues. The big thing on it might be a lamp? He found a button on it and flicked it, the light turning on to confirm. He opened the top drawer and looked inside. There wasn't much, except for a small tube that he brought out to examine. He tried to read the words but didn't have much luck beyond identifying individual letters. He was able to read above his age level when he still had sight, but he would have to relearn. He pressed the top and a clear gel squirted out. It felt a bit like lotion so he spread it on the back of his hand before putting the tube away.

He hadn't noticed Tadashi approach him, and he felt a little jolt of surprise when he turned to see him there. He had some sort of handheld device. _Stay still._ Tadashi signed to him, touching the back of his hand, and Hiro was relieved that he was calm enough to understand now without trouble. 

Tadashi touched the device to his temple and moved it around different spots on his head every time a blue light lit up. Hiro recognised the touches, Tadashi had described it as a brain scan and he had been doing them quite often since he had begun SFIT. Hiro felt a little silly for not realising what his brother was taking the data for earlier.

“‘Dashi. I love you.” He blurted out suddenly when he turned the scanner off, finding his voice again. Tadashi placed it down on the bedside table, and bent down to kiss him on the forehead. He watched Tadashi's mouth move in what could only mean “I love you too.”. He seemed happy.

Hiro had so many questions and he wasn't sure where to start. He grabbed both of Tadashi’s hands and pulled him down to sit next to him before he could run off again.

“Tadashi, where are we?” 

 

“Fred’s house. We’re safe here.” Tadashi answered, using fingerbraille. “Are you okay? I should have prepared you better. I just didn't want to get your hopes up in case it failed.”

“It's… it hurts. Not my eyes, but my head. It's not so bad now, but before when we were walking and in the car it was very overwhelming. But I think I'll get used to it. It's hard to identify things. Like there are things I remember from my memories and dreams but I can't be completely sure.”

“That's normal and everything seems to be within the recommended parameters. But get some rest now, you've gone through a lot tonight. Did you want a shower? I need to show you how to turn Baymax off and remove your lenses.”

Hiro nodded and reopened his eyes. So it was called Baymax? He wondered if it was an anagram. Maybe it stood for B - Barium, Y - Yttrium… no, that was an unlikely element but the only one that fit. He would have to ask Tadashi later, it wasn’t the highest of his concerns. He had been wondering if the contact lenses had to be removed or not, he hoped it wouldn’t be as painful to put them in next time. He took Tadashi's hand and stood up. He leaving his backpack on the bed, curious to find out the range of the device. If it was short he was sure Tadashi would pick it up for him. His toes sank into the soft plush carpet, the room felt a lot more decadent than their normal lodging.

The light turned on for the bathroom as they entered. Hiro jumped a little, surprised by the sudden illumination and what he saw. The first thing Hiro noticed was two people staring back at him. One was Tadashi and the other… it must have been himself. Wide eyes mirrored his shock. Tadashi squeezed his hand reassuringly and walked him forward.

They went right up to the mirror, so the only thing separating him was the basin. He watched himself bring his hand up to touch his cheek. Noticing his hair was in the way he tucked the offending locks behind his ears. He had the same large almond shaped eyes as Tadashi, although his own looked larger partly due to shock. And they had the same nose! He couldn't see many similarities beyond that but he was happy to share at least some of the same features. He noticed that Tadashi was smiling, and he smiled back. There was a difference in their smiles, the gap in his front teeth which occasionally annoyed him when he was eating was quite visible.

He had had enough and looked away from his reflection to look at the real Tadashi. It was funny, this was how it had all started. He remembered the bath he had with Tadashi all those months ago that had ignited his desire. He smiled sweetly at his brother, closing the gap between them. He stood on his tiptoes to plant a quick kiss on his soft lips. A reward for the hard work he had put in! What had started as a light kiss quickly deepened.

Hiro moaned into Tadashi’s mouth, and he pulled his brother in close linking his hands behind Tadashi's neck, his skin felt warm to the touch. Tadashi returned the favor and hooked an arm around his waist, and his other hand weaved into his hair. They kissed deeply, but it felt a little more awkward than usual. Hiro had kept his eyes open and it felt a little weird, even Tadashi had his closed so he followed suit. That was much better!

After what felt like an eternity, but ended too soon the brothers pulled away, both a little out of breath. Hiro observed the flushed cheeks and the sparkle in his eyes, happiness replacing the look of concern Tadashi wore earlier. 

“How about a bath?” Hiro prompted, while pulling his shirt off over his head. Torso exposed, he tugged up Tadashi’s own white shirt, revelling in how easy it was now to find the gaps in clothing. Tadashi removed his shirt the rest of the way and they faced each other naked from the waist up.

He reached out and tentatively touched Tadashi’s stomach. He was so familiar with this body with his eyes closed, but it felt brand new and foreign now. His body felt hot beneath his fingers. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on his brother’s pec. Looking up to make eye contact he realised that Tadashi was blushing fiercely in his reaction to his touch, his breath was fast and shallow.

Hiro smiled, he knew why. His brother may be older than, but he was definitely a lot more shy. Even though they've stood together like this many times before, this was the first time Hiro could actually see him. Hiro grinned at him and kept the eye contact, and he started slowly kissing him on different spots over his chest. He finally kissed his nipple, and was rewarded with a visible moan. Encouraged, he licked the sensitive bud before taking it into his mouth and gently sucking. 

Tadashi closed his eyes in bliss and Hiro used the opportunity to snake his hands into Tadashi's waistband. He was only wearing sweatpants and he easily lowered his jocks and pants in an easy motion. Tadashi’s eyes snapped open, and he stepped away quickly pulling his pants up before Hiro could get a good glimpse.

“‘Dashi! Please!” Hiro pleaded, exasperated that Tadashi was still apprehensive. He thought that maybe now that he had his vision back that Tadashi would be more willing.

Tadashi shook his head and busied himself with turning on the shower, and checking that it was a comfortable temperature. Unsatisfied, Hiro walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his middle, revelling in his new sense. Having a bold idea, he used his body strength and shoved against him, both of them now under the shower. Hiro smirked, their pants were wet. He would have to remove them now!

Tadashi turned to face him, he was laughing. Hiro smiled back and pushed Tadashi again, the older brother allowing him to maneuver his back against the shower Hiro. The water was splashing against them both and he couldn't help but admire how nice the droplets looked against his brother’s slightly tanned skin.

“Take your pants off.” Hiro said with as much authority as he could muster, speaking louder than he normally would. He felt his voice crack as he said it, but Tadashi said that that was normal.

His brother hesitated, but the older boy could have easily escaped if he really wanted to. Didn't Tadashi understand? He didn't need to be scared anymore. Everyone would know about their relationship soon enough already, so what was the point of denying it? Even Fred must have knew otherwise they would have been given separate rooms. They had certainly walked past enough doors!

“‘Dashi. You've been naked in front of me before. I'm still the same person.” 

He thought his brother was going to leave, but after a moment of hesitation he removed the remainder of his clothing. Hiro smiled in his victory and followed suit. He kissed Tadashi full on the mouth in appreciation.

Not wanting to scare Tadashi off, Hiro made a point to avoid staring at his brother's semi-erect manhood. Instead he turned his attention to the soaps, which were all in bottles with squeezy tops. At home there was a very specific order for what was soap, shampoo and conditioner but he doubted that rule applied here. The shower room itself felt a lot spacier than what he was used to.

He pulled at Tadashi's wrist and directed them both under the blast of the water. “Wash me, please.” He asked, and was happy when the older boy obliged. Tadashi touched his eyelids gently and he understood, closing his eyes. Tadashi began with his hair, and he enjoyed the feeling of the shampoo being massaged into his scalp.

He opened his eyes once his hair had been rinsed. Tadashi smiled at him and he grinned back. Hiro couldn't remember ever smiling so much! His cheeks were beginning to hurt!

Hiro was feeling quite tired and didn't make a big deal for the rest of the shower, knowing it would just upset Tadashi. After they had dried off he was told to wait while Tadashi retrieved Baymax.

Tadashi explained in front of the mirror how to shut down Baymax, and how it was important to do so before removing the lenses. Hiro was a bit worried about this part, remembering the clamps that was used to get them in. He was reassured that that was a one off and he should be able to do the full process by himself. Tadashi also told him that it would never hurt as much as the first time the device had been turned on and that had been an anomaly because he was the first human trial.

Tadashi demonstrated the process of insertion and removal with a pair of his own clear contacts. Hiro event attempted try to take them out of his brother’s eye, but it made Hiro feel a little queasy to touch Tadashi’s eye, and Tadashi couldn't help but flinch so it didn’t quite work out.

Hiro got a little exasperated with the practicing and decided the best way was just to try the real thing as Tadashi could remove them for him if he failed. He shut off Baymax as instructed. He had expected an immediate disconnect to blackness, like shutting his eyes, but instead it took a full minute for the picture to fade away. He waited an extra 10 seconds, counting them slowly in his head, to be sure before attempting to take the contact out of his left eye. It was surprisingly easy, and he pinched the edges with success and guided it to the contact case that he had practiced finding with his eyes closed. Easy. He had to try the second lens with a few more attempts but he got there eventually, finally pinching the edges.

He exhaled in relief. The dull headache he had been feeling had finally subsided. He was more than ready to go to sleep, he had a lot to process and he was going to make sure Tadashi taught him as much as he could in the morning.

He hugged his brother's arm in the familiar hook and was guided back to the bedroom, the cold tile being replaced with the plush carpet. The silk bed sheets felt even nicer than he remembered against his bare skin, and he relished in the fact that they both remained naked. 

His back felt warm against Tadashi's chest, his heavy breathing tickled the back of his neck. For once Tadashi had fallen asleep before him, his arm holding him in close. He hadn't noticed that Tadashi was tired, but it made a lot of sense. Tadashi always stayed up later than him, as he knew he left the bed when he thought Hiro was sleeping, and he was never in bed when he woke up in the morning. Tadashi didn’t say how long they were staying at Fred’s, but he hoped it was for a long time so they could rest.

Hiro was tired too, but now that he was back in the familiar territory of nothingness he found it difficult to fall asleep, his mind was racing. It didn’t help that it was slightly uncomfortable with the arm threaded under his waist and Tadashi’s other arm heavily draped over him. He tried not to move, not wanting to disturb Tadashi's much needed slumber.

\---

“Thanks so much for checking Robert. I’ll let you know when they turn up.”

 

It was way past midnight and her boys hadn’t returned home yet. Cass had felt worried when Tadashi had told her his project would be working soon, but Robert had eased her concerns when she brought it up with him and she trusted him and Tadashi. But something must have gone wrong. Tadashi wasn’t answering his phone and Robert said there was no signs of them at the lab. Where could they possibly be? Had something happened on the way home? 

She shuddered at the thought. She still remembered how frightened she was when Robert had almost ran into Gogo just the other week. These kids were still so young and emotional. She had even let them take the scooter, why didn’t she insist that Tadashi use the car? The car! Should she go out and look for them?

No. Robert lived in the same area and had seen nothing on the route. But if something went wrong…

To her relief, a quick call told her the hospital hadn’t admitted anyone fitting their description.

It was so unlike Tadashi to be irresponsible. Where were they?

At a loss Cass walked upstairs to the boy’s bedroom, letting herself in. She turned the light on as if expecting them to be there.

There… wasn’t much there at all.

Aside from the books and computer, the room had always been rather minimalist to simplify things for Hiro. But there were some key trinkets that were missing. And most noticeably, her brother’s hat. Tadashi used to wear it a lot as a kid, but had retired it to a keepsake when Hiro had also lost his hearing. She couldn’t blame Tadashi for attributing some blame to his parents.

Tadashi had never gone through a rebellious teenage phase. Tadashi was much like her brother in that regard. He had been the favorite child, graduating early and considered a genius. While Cass… well, she could see a lot of her younger self in Gogo.

But there was something that was out of place, a white note that stood out on Hiro’s black bed sheets. She knew that Hiro’s bed hadn’t been used for months. She tried to give the boys privacy but Tadashi never had the time to give the room a deep clean, no matter how tidy he was. It hadn’t worried her that they slept in the same bed. They had always had a unique relationship, but she knew that Tadashi would never hurt Hiro. Besides, how was she going to bring that up to him without sounding like she was accusing him of something inappropriate?

She recalled her therapist was always a little worried by the way she described the boys. She had said there was a dangerous amount of codependency.

“Of course Hiro is codependent on Tadashi.” Cass had snapped back. “He won’t talk to me and he’s the only one he trusts.”

“It’s not Hiro I’m worried about. It’s Tadashi.” Dr. Tefa had insisted, unperturbed by her outburst. In its broadest sense, a codependent is someone who can't function from their innate self and whose thinking and behavior is instead organized solely around that other person. It was like being addicted to drugs or gambling.

_Dear Aunt Cass,_

_If you're reading this, it's because Hiro and I never came back from SFIT. The good news is this means that Baymax (the project I've been working on) has worked on Hiro, at least visually and I'll continue to work on the audio aspect as soon as I can._

_The other news is difficult for me to say and I’m sorry that you have had to find out this way, and you may already know from other sources. I need you to know that it is absolutely not your fault and that we are happy._

_I'm truly sorry._

_To be frank, Hiro and I are in love. We are more than just brothers. I need him just as much as he needs me and this is why we had to leave as our life together is being threatened._

_Aunt Cass, I'm sorry I haven't had the strength to come to you earlier, you might have been able to help me. I tried to suppress my feelings for Hiro, but it became impossible when he began reciprocate my emotions._

_My biggest fear is that even though I tried to shield him from my perversions, that I may have subconsciously made him believe he had to think of me in the same way. If he ever questions or wants to stop, I will turn myself in and give Hiro a chance at living a normal life. With his sight back, Hiro will probably realise that there's more to life than just me and I will need you to take care of him in my stead._

_If you never hear from us again, please know it's because we are safe and happy together._

_I’m sorry Aunt Cass._

_With love,  
Tadashi_

The note fell from her hands.

Oh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh.
> 
> This chapter has had many many different versions (some of which are lost and were written 2 years ago). I'm not particularly happy with this version but it's very much a 'post it or I never will' situation. The main reason I've had difficulty with this chapter is because it's sort of a fork in the road for where the story ends up.
> 
> Also it's my birthday. Yay me.
> 
> As always, thank-you for reading and thank-you so much to those who leave comments!


	16. The Calm Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews everyone! They honestly keep me going and makes me feel a little less crazy for writing this AU! You're all the best! I hope you all have your learning caps on for this one.

Tadashi woke up right on queue at his regular 5am start. He had fallen asleep almost instantly the night before, mentally and physically exhausted he hadn't even taken the time to slip into pyjamas. Heat rose to his cheeks as he realised his exposed morning wood was pressed against Hiro’s bare buttocks. He had fallen asleep holding Hiro close, and it was a miracle his arm wasn't dead from being slept on. Admiring the silky smooth skin and just how perfectly they fit together he willed himself to move his hips away surreptitiously, willing himself to go down. 

It was still unbelievable. Just a few hours ago Hiro had seen for the first time in ten years. He couldn’t help but feel proud about that even though the rushed circumstances were less than ideal. He would have preferred to have had more time in the lab to run diagnostics but he had to run on such a tight timeframe for a clean escape. _Escape?_ Gosh, he was absolutely mental! He had literally kidnapped his own brother who was a minor, and had even gotten Fred involved as an accomplice.

He sighed, and tried to relax, breathing in the scent of Hiro’s hair. It smelt soft, a warm, clean fresh orange blossom scent with a touch of coconut and a dash of cinnamon, far more fancier than the shampoo they usually used. Oh! _I should have dried Hiro’s hair completely before we slept._ He fretted, worried that Hiro had slept with damp hair, especially now that it had gotten so long. It was probably the least of their worries, but they couldn’t afford Hiro getting sick because of his oversight.

_I love you Hiro._

He cherished these moments. He loved nothing more than just being with Hiro and holding him close. He wanted this to last forever, but they still had a lot to do. He had to teach his brother as much as he could so he could adapt, and it was going to be difficult for the both of them. 

From his preliminary examination of Hiro, they were essentially starting from scratch. It was as he expected, as Hiro had been so young when he lost his vision, but he had hoped otherwise. He hypothesised that due to the loss of his vision at a very early age, this resulted in underdeveloped visual cortex cells that were not used to the stimuli in his surroundings. 

Patients who experienced dramatic recovery from blindness usually had significant to total agnosia, having serious confusion with their visual perception. Agnosia was the inability to process sensory information. This meant that there would be a lack of ability to recognize objects and shapes. There was a low chance that Hiro had just been disoriented and would be able to develop visual comprehension but most of his research proved it unlikely.

There was one case that had frightened Tadashi the most. A man who had regained vision, but instead of the expected jubilation, subsequent behavior was that of a "mentally blind" person —someone who saw but couldn’t decipher what was out there; he would act as if he were still blind. Often confused, he had rapidly sank into depression before taking his life.

At the very least, Hiro should be able to accurately judge the distance to objects in the same room, having been familiar with these distances before regaining sight by virtue of having walked them. A man named Bradford who had regained sight was a machinist, but even after acquiring vision preferred working with his eyes closed to identify tools. It reminded him of how Hiro had kept closing his eyes to interpret fingerbraille and tadoma.

The most similar scenario that Tadashi had encountered was of a man who had lost his vision when he was three years old. He reportedly adapted well to his recovered vision. However he still had no intuitive grasp of depth perception. As people walked away from him, he perceived them as literally shrinking in size. He also had problems distinguishing male from female faces, and recognizing emotional expressions on unfamiliar faces.

At four years of age, it was unlikely that Hiro’s vision had reached the acuity of an adult person; as a consequence, his brain was still not completely exposed to the full extent of clarity in relation to the images and light of the environment. With his vision not fully developed; it seemed unlikely that Hiro would be able to distinguish shapes, drawings, or images clearly. Consequently, Tadashi anticipated that Hiro would experience difficulty describing the outside world in comparison to a normal-sighted person. For example, it would be difficult for him to differentiate between complex shapes, dimensions, and the orientation of objects.

Tadashi wished he could have enjoyed their proximity just a little while longer, but his brain was too busy thinking through the worst-case scenarios of Hiro’s adaptation to vision and he knew that he shouldn’t be stalling with preparing more tests to see exactly where Hiro was at.

Tadashi finally tried to pry himself free, but the teen matched his movements. Hiro moved in his sleep, a soft moan emitting from his mouth as Hiro mourned the loss of contact, back arching and buttocks rubbing against him causing his manhood to spring back to life with a rush and pushing all thoughts about the day’s plan out of his mind.

His animalistic urge to take Hiro then and there was quickly squashed as he berated himself for even having the audacity of thinking about it. He was meant to be the responsible big brother when he had been everything but that! If he had any ounce of decency left he would call Aunt Cass to pick Hiro up and hand himself in so he could no longer influence his brother.

But the feeling of shame and inner torment were only secondary to how he felt for Hiro. 

Hiro pressed himself against Tadashi again, this time undoubtedly deliberately, his perky butt pushing against his erection. Flustered, he quickly untangled himself from Hiro and sat up. He wasn't used to Hiro being awake before him, but the couple of times he had been, he had woken up to Hiro doing less than appropriate things. He had no idea how Hiro had developed such a voracious libido, he was sure he wasn’t anywhere near as lascivious at his age.

“Ta-da-shi…” Hiro said in his rigid whisper, interrupting his thoughts and sitting up with him. His hands reached out blindly searching for contact. Tadashi inhaled sharply when Hiro found his upper thigh. He knew he should remove it, but as always it felt like he was trapped under a spell.

Finding his target, Hiro maneuvered himself to a straddling position on top of his brother. Unable to resist, Hiro’s touch was too warm and tantalizing, and he embraced Hiro tightly, chest to chest, Hiro's legs wrapped securely around his waist. Hiro leant in and kissed him lightly before drawing back.

“I didn’t sleep much, but when I did I had an interesting dream about us.” Hiro said in his slow and careful way of speaking, sending a shiver down his spine. “My head keeps spinning thinking about everything I saw. Thinking about you.”

He wanted to ask Hiro what he dreamt about, but was in a position where he was unable to. Hiro unravelled his arms from their embrace. Tadashi expected it to be so Hiro could communicate, but was taken by surprise when the teen instead reached behind himself, hand finding and grasping his still hardened cock. In spite of himself, Tadashi rocked up into Hiro’s fist, which earned him a victorious grin.

He surveyed Hiro’s face. His eyes were closed as usual. His cheeks full with soft skin and a natural blush on his cheeks, even though the only thing he ever seemed to be embarrassed about was speech related. His smile was big, showing off his gap tooth that he had always found adorable but had annoyed Hiro to no end with certain foods. It had been a miracle seeing his eyes open yesterday. But even with his senses, this was his Hiro and he was perfect either way.

Unable to contain himself, Tadashi leaned down to capture Hiro’s perfect lips, which happily parted to accept him. To a mixture of relief and disappointment Hiro relinquished his hold on Tadashi’s cock, opting instead to thread his hands behind Tadashi's neck. Hiro yawned loudly, and rested his head against Tadashi’s neck, his playfulness giving in to his exhaustion.

Relieved, he tucked Hiro in and instructed him to get some rest, as he seemed to have had not slept much at all. This was contrary to their usual sleeping patterns, and Tadashi was surprised to find that he himself had managed to get a solid 7-hours of sleep. He felt rather refreshed.

Fred had graciously given them access to an entire wing. He had forbade servants to enter, except for Heathcliff who had already been sworn to secrecy. It was a temporary retreat, while Fred’s parents were scheduled away for at least a month. Heathcliff had put his foot, only agreeing to help them as long as they left before the master returned.

Tadashi had already been over a few times during the week to help prepare, and together he and Fred had converted one of the dining rooms into a classroom. He would have to use the month to teach Hiro as much as he could about the seeing world as the next step in his plan would be difficult to execute otherwise. It was a tight schedule, but if anyone could adapt in that timeframe it was his brother.

He had free reign to one of the kitchens which was well-stocked and busied himself with cooking. He was sure Hiro would be hungry when he woke up again. One of Hiro’s favourites was carrot, cranberry and pecan muffins which was one of Aunt Cass’ recipes and it would hopefully make him feel at ease. With the muffins baking in the oven, he prepared himself some simple bacon and eggs.

Heavy footsteps which could only belong to Fred startled him. Tadashi suddenly wished he was wearing more than just his boxer briefs and an apron. The deceptively rich boy entered the kitchen with a big yawn, and didn’t even glance at Tadashi before taking a seat from underneath the counter and plonking himself onto it.

“What’s cooking, chef?”

“Good morning Fred. I didn't expect you to be up!” He said brightly, relieved that Fred hadn’t commented on his attire (or lack of), and poured him a glass of orange juice. He had never seen Fred at SFIT earlier than 2pm, and had assumed that he wasn’t much of a morning person.

“I smelt bacon, and I like food just a bit more than I like sleep.” He mumbled, his head resting on his arms half asleep. They didn't talk much more until Fred perked up after drinking coffee, asking about how Hiro was adjusting and how he was going along with tweaking the audio side of things, which sadly Tadashi had hardly had time to develop.

“Oh by the way, did you find the lube? I put some in the bedside table for ya. Figured you might forget to pack your own.” Fred said casually through devouring his second bacon and egg sandwich.

Tadashi almost spat out his juice, but instead swallowed it down the wrong way and was lucky it didn’t come out of his nose. He had told Fred the bare minimum about why they had to leave. Why did he presume that they were… well he wasn’t entirely wrong…  
Fred watched him in bemusement as he spluttered, tears stinging his eyes while he found his composure.

“So, you two haven't...? I mean, I just presumed that you had with the whole running away from home thing…” Fred paused, and Tadashi could almost see his brain click things into place, “And just with how close you are I figured that you guys were… ya know...” He made lewd gestures with his cutlery before stabbing a spare piece of bacon. “Porking.”

“I-We… no. We aren’t. Not like that!” Tadashi said in defence, cheeks flushed as he busied himself with washing the dishes. He had enough pushing from Hiro, he didn't need Fred to start too. “And need I remind you that Hiro is only fourteen years old. He's too young! And he doesn’t know what I’ve gotten him into, not really.” He said out loud after a moment of awkward silence, more to himself than anything.

“Hang on a minute. You said you haven’t been in a relationship before...” Fred tried to probe more answers out of him, “You're a virgin!” he said, pointing his fork accusingly at him in realisation, as if Tadashi had committed a heinous crime.

Tadashi broke a plate. 

He cursed. At least he hadn’t cut himself, but did he did have a sudden urge to throw half the plate at Fred’s head.

“Exactly! Look at you!” Fred said, gesturing to Tadashi’s physique. “You’re telling me you’ve _never_ done the do?”

He groaned. It was like High School all over again.

After some gentle coaxing and persistent pestering Tadashi found it surprisingly easy to talk to Fred about his relationship with Hiro, albeit skirting around some of the more explicit details. Fred not only didn’t seem to judge him at all, he was even openly encouraging of them.

It turned out Fred was quite… promiscuous? Or adventurous? Tadashi wasn’t quite sure what the best way to describe the man was, but he had started quite young and seemed to have quite a bit of life experience with a wide range of people. Tadashi had to pause washing the dishes when he dropped a plate when Fred started talking about his sexual exploits in detail.

 

“Look man, you know Hiro better than anyone. But all I'm saying is you're the one who goes on about how intelligent he is. He seems more mature than you’re giving him credit for.” Fred said matter of factly.

As if to prove Fred’s point, the door to their bedroom swung open and Hiro stepped tentatively outside. He was dressed in his clothes from the night before. His eyes were open, warily looking over toward the kitchen. Tadashi was impressed that Hiro was able to not only find the contacts, but activate Baymax, having only gone over it once the night before. Hiro had always been good at counting steps and remembering where he had been, but he thought that he would have forgotten with all of the excitement from yesterday. There were also other amazing implications, which meant things like depth perception wasn’t a problem as he had previously expected.

Tadashi waved him over and Hiro smiled at him, moving his suspicious eyes away from Fred and tentatively walking towards him. Tadashi met him halfway, embracing him in a hug. Another check. Facial recognition and memory, as well as some gestures seemed to be familiar to him.

Hiro had always been advanced for his age, but Tadashi had thought that that may actually work against him.

 

His brother had adapted remarkably well to his loss of eyesight and hearing. He had mastered literally braille and Grade 1 and 2 codes before he had even turned six years old which combined with the conspiracy theories surrounding their parents death, had brought him some media attention early on which he had grown to dislike. He even turned to learning Grade 3, which was a densely contracted form of English braille and self-taught himself in Japanese Braille known as ‘tenji’, which was based on the original braille script, though the connection was tenuous and Nemeth Braille, a braille code solely for mathematical symbols and formulas. Hiro’s reading speed and efficiency had been developed to match and even exceed the speed of his sighted peers. He had no doubt that there was no one more proficient in multiple braille codes.

While Hiro had not been born blind, he quickly suffered the same challenges of a congenitally blind person, with many of the things he had seen as a child having not been completely cemented in his brain. But even with his proficiency, braille was convenient only for shorter things, like labels. Before Hiro had his refreshable braille reader his textbooks had come in 30-50 volumes a piece. They had a tendency to arrive late and had a standard of a 20% error rate, excluding all maps and graphics. Even when raised lined images were included, Hiro struggled reading them because he had no point of reference as to what they were representing. He often had to rely on Tadashi to describe things to him, but even that had been problematic as he had no frame of reference for what Hiro could imagine. 

Everyone had to be socialized in order to fit into society, but it was harder for people who never received visual or auditory cues. In the early days, Hiro did things that weren’t socially acceptable because he found those actions comforting, and other times Hiro didn’t do certain things that reassure sighted people, because such actions were inconsequential to him.

Do you remember your first birthday? How about what you ate for breakfast weeks ago? For most people, such events slip through the sieve of memory, never to be retrieved. The brain clears away old information in the process of forming new memories. And it was the rate of Hiro’s rapid early learning that had mostly worried Tadashi. Even if Hiro had been old enough to comprehend what he was seeing at the age of four, there was a high chance Hiro’s brain had discarded this as useless data, as evident from his dreams lacking vision.

But for all the worry that Tadashi had, Hiro once again proved him wrong. Just as Hiro had adapted to losing his vision, Hiro had reacted remarkably well to regaining his vision. It appeared that the extra year of growth from the case study of the 3-year old was enough to permanently imprint some important visual cues. Hiro’s mental capacity was truly remarkable.

The morning of testing concluded that Hiro had no cognitive issues and could differentiate two dimensional and three dimensional objects, as well as identify colors, and most importantly he could read distance.

“Why do you look so happy? I failed most of the tests, didn’t I?” Hiro asked when Tadashi turned off the screen that he had been using to show Hiro different images.

He explained to Hiro that the tests he did fail were knowledge based and easily taught. Hiro struggled with things like the visual alphabet, expressions on different faces, identifying gender, and classifying objects. This didn’t worry Tadashi at all, especially with his proven rate of learning, and Hiro seemed to be reassured by his trust.

After a quick lunch break with Hiro watching Tadashi in the kitchen intently, they began his first lesson. Tadashi invited Fred to join them as he wanted to go over some simple sign language to make communication a bit easier.

Tadashi had been preparing teaching material for lessons over the years in the hope that one day his brother would be cured. He found that in cases where people had regained their vision, the main problem therein lied in recovery. While technology to aid people had increased more than ever, there were no official extensive support programs to assist readjustment. It was a bit of a Catch-22, as for about the last 20 years, the congenital blind were now largely able to be cured as infants, and those who were older usually opted to stay non-sighted due to the issues with rehabilitation.

When Tadashi was 14 he watched a video in which a teenage boy, blind since birth because of opaque cataracts, saw for the first time. The boy sat still and blinked silently, the room around him reflecting in his eyes as a kind of proof of their new transparency. 

The first moments for the newly sighted were blurry, incoherent, and saturated by brightness—like walking into daylight with dilated pupils—and swirls of colors that do not make sense as shapes or faces or any kind of object. The moments immediately following bandage removal were not quite as ‘magical’ as Hollywood movies would have him believe so he had been impressed that Hiro was adapting as well as he was.

The sign language lesson went well, and Tadashi incorporated it with showing Hiro matching English letters and words as he knew Hiro would be able to handle it. As expected, Hiro picked things up quite easily and blitzed through learning the alphabet using a combination of a hands on approach with familiar braille and committing the shapes of the letters to memory. 

Fred lagged behind despite only having to learn the hand gestures, but was able to memorise a few letters, and picked up a few of the essential simple gestures such as food, help, and bathroom. Fred ducked out after the first hour, as it was beginning to fry his brain and it was best if he went to SFIT so no one would question why both Fred and Tadashi were missing. Fred had also called it a bit of a recon mission, as he wanted to see if anyone suspected anything as no official search had been initiated to their knowledge.

Tadashi wasn't a master of sign language himself, having used different tactile techniques but, had studied enough to help with the initial stages of learning. He hoped they wouldn't need it at all soon, with the chance of Hiro’s hearing being restored, but it was still a useful tool in the interim. With Hiro having been considerably older when he had lost his hearing, Tadashi was confident that Hiro would be able to pick up audio cues extremely well with little tutoring.

Tadashi was thrilled. Maybe things would be okay after all.

\---

Hiro absolutely relished the busy learning schedule.

But there was _so_ much to learn. It was a never ending torrent of information and he was his headache never really did go away even when he turned Baymax off before he went to sleep.

It was thrilling having so much content to consume, and being able to easily understand it without having to work around things was great.

But it was also insanely frustrating because he inherently knew just how behind he was. A 14 year old boy should easily be able to watch a movie and comprehend what he was seeing without having to question about what objects the characters were holding up, or trying to understand subtle looks and expressions. He was sure that he had no trouble when he was younger, but it was all a ridiculous blur.

As usual he was used to Tadashi’s patience, and he had no problem explaining the most mundane things, even unprompted.

Within a week he was having fully signed conversations with his brother, and even Fred had gotten a lot better. Despite his initial reserves, Hiro quickly grew a liking toward Fred, and was grateful that he was housing them. He decided that Fred was rather funny, and even though they had trouble communicating, Fred would usually pull some funny faces to make him laugh. He was endlessly amused the day Fred brought home his monster mascot suit home from a game at SFIT.

He had been instinctually frightened at first and had ran to Tadashi, shielding himself behind him. The green rubber dinosaur with giant yellow eyes and an ever so slight humanoid appearance was like nothing he had ever seen before. It didn’t even help when Fred had removed the head. For a moment he thought the beast had eaten him!

The resulted explanation from Tadashi calmed Hiro down a lot and earned him an afternoon off where Fred forced them to watch an ancient Godzilla movie, which Tadashi had insisted was completely fake. Hiro was pleased he was able to keep up with most of the subtitles and by the end of it he was completely comfortable sitting next to his mascot friend. 

Aside from sign language, his learning for the first week was mostly about re-learning about daily things. Tadashi had a lot of different materials prepared, and he had a lot of videos, flash cards and even threw some pop quizzes at him. He enjoyed the practical lessons the most, like watching Tadashi in the kitchen to find out what kitchenware looked like, naming ingredients, and how to use them (although Tadashi didn’t let him near the stove or chop vegetables), and other daily things like learning how to change the sheets. He had no idea changing a duvet cover could be so difficult. It was a little bit irritating because Hiro knew that what he was learning was considered mundane and ordinary to most people, but he couldn’t help but be fascinated looking at everything he had been missing. He had a solid ten years to catch up on.

At night, Tadashi was still working on further developing Baymax, and he told Hiro that he was hoping to have his hearing back soon. Hiro figured Tadashi must have been very confident about that, considering he didn’t tell him about Baymax in the first place in case it got his hopes up.

This had left Hiro some free time to do his own studying before bed. Tadashi had shown him the basics of how to use the laptop, and had put together some helpful online resources for him to study. Hiro had picked it up fast and quickly begun expanding his knowledge outside of the preset curriculum that Tadashi had put together. Everything was just so easy being sighted! With a screen reader, there was no "looking". It was just a simple parser that started at the top. It combed through websites a lot like how a web browser combs through HTML. But it wasn’t just text and images that blind users miss, it was virtually every part of the fundamental browsing experience. But with vision, he found the whole thing very intuitive and the internet had access to everything he could ever imagine. Unlike his guided lessons with Tadashi, the internet was a chaotic mess of new information.

He was thankful that some of the things that made sense when he was blind still made sense now. Mathematics still had the same principal, and was easy when he learnt the symbols, although he worked through problems slower than he did by touch. Tadashi was right though, he just needed more practice. Coding was a lot easier, and he immersed himself in visually learning C and C++ although he didn’t really have an end goal anymore so his attention had quickly wandered to looking up other information.

He quickly found out that Tadashi had set up some form of parental lock that prohibited him from looking at anything not-intended for an underage person. He wasn’t exactly trying to find porn… It just sort of happened while he was clicking through the internet rabbit hole. It was a little disappointing, but he was sure there was a way to bypass it and it didn’t take him long to work out how. He had a feeling the program Tadashi had used was intended for someone much younger and a lot less craftier than him.

And yet, his curiosity was thwarted almost as quickly as it had started. It had never occured for him to turn off volume, and with Tadashi working on Baymax in the same room his brother was summoned to his side quickly as moans from the video he was watching must have alerted his attention. 

Tadashi had quickly closed the tab, and Hiro noted with amusement that his brother was flushed again.

“It’s okay Tadashi, it wasn’t anything that we haven’t done before.” Hiro said reassuringly, but only succeeded in making Tadashi look even more flustered. “I’m sure you’ve watched it before and it’s not abnormal for someone my age to watch it too, even though it’s not technically legal.”

He knew that look, it was that internal struggle Tadashi always had when he wasn’t sure how to answer something and Hiro never had been one to hold back punches.

Hiro wasn’t entirely surprised when Tadashi said he had only dabbled in watching, but it wasn’t really his thing. It turned out that Hiro himself had more exposure to exploring his sexuality. He never had parental locks on his braille readers, as he doubted that Tadashi had even thought to put one on, and he had ended up doing a lot of research partly due to help him understand the situation he was in with his brother. He hadn’t had to worry about being discreet because it would be hard for anyone to know what he was reading. While Hiro’s insight was only based on articles, forums and some works of fiction, he had a solid reference for who he was and what he wanted and the social stigma didn’t bother him at all. Hiro understood that Tadashi’s feelings of guilt from being attracted to his own brother had caused him to repress his sexuality.

Hiro couldn’t help but laugh at how genuinely shocked Tadashi was when he had admitted to what sort of content he had been reading. His brother really was innocent. Why did he think his grades had been slipping? He loved being able to see his brother’s reactions. It was a totally different experience than when he was blind, as he could only read his brother’s feelings based on the perceived situation and the slither of touch that connected them.

 

Hiro tried to convince Tadashi to watch a video together but he made an excuse about having to get back to work and made Hiro look away while he set up a much more secure program.

“You’re not my parent.” Hiro said, somewhat bitterly while he watched Tadashi put the parental lock in place. He regretted the words almost as soon as he had said them, realising how childish his reaction was.

He hadn’t seen that look on Tadashi’s face before. Disappointment?

He hated that he was making things harder for Tadashi. Why did he have to say that?

Tadashi had been more of a parent to him than anyone else in his world. He didn’t know their parents and while he knew Aunt Cass held things together in the background, they never had a real connection. Hiro recalled a few times when they were younger when he had accidentally referred to Tadashi as ‘dad’ before quickly realising his mistake. As far as he knew, Tadashi had never made a big deal of it. Tadashi filled many and all roles for him, not only a brother, but his guardian, his teacher, his lover. He had been all he knew, the one frame of tangible evidence that there was an outside world.

After a moment, Tadashi signed to him that he was right and could do as he willed. He slid the laptop back to him, with the only change Hiro could notice was that the speaker symbol was set to mute and returned to his workstation.

After looking through a few videos he decided that it wasn’t really much of his thing either, but he attributed that to his clapback to Tadashi rather than his taste. Watching two people being intimate with each other did feel a little odd, and it made him crave attention. He went back to YouTube and started looking at some other videos to take his mind off of things.

There were some things he missed about being blind. Mostly he missed the intimacy he used to have with Tadashi. His world used to be defined by what he could touch, and that meant that his entire world was his brother. Even though he could see Tadashi working on Baymax in the same room, it wasn’t quite the same.

He was glad that Tadashi never pushed him away whenever he reverted back to using one of their tactile communication methods. It certainly wasn’t as efficient as reading or sign, but he missed their special connection. He wondered if Tadashi missed it too, but Hiro guessed he was too busy being absorbed with Baymax. And the change probably couldn’t have affected Tadashi as much, he had always been sighted after all.

Hiro had stumbled upon cat videos. He wondered how Mochi was doing. Maybe Tadashi would be able to get Mochi back now? It didn’t seem likely in their situation, but maybe they could get another cat later on.

“‘Dashi?” Hiro said out loud, no longer able to handle the distance and the awkward way he had ended their last conversation.

At the sound of his name, Tadashi immediately straightened up from his work bench and turned around to face him, signing to ask if he was okay. He was familiar with that expression now. Tadashi was always worrying about him.

Hiro nodded, simply signing “I miss you… that’s all.”

It had been something playing on his mind for the last few days. It was fine during the day when Tadashi was teaching him, but he didn’t like the night time sessions, no matter how entertaining and educational the internet was. He knew it was silly, and that he shouldn’t be distracting Tadashi from his work, after all what Tadashi was doing was for all him. He turned back to his computer before Tadashi could make a big fuss over him.

Barely a breath later he felt familiar arms wrapped around his shoulders. Tadashi held him close, and Hiro was glad that he was there.

Since the first night, Hiro hadn’t initiated any intimate contact, hoping that Tadashi would take the initiative. But aside from their lessons, they were barely alone together. Tadashi always woke up before him and went to bed after him. He could tell it was taking a toll on his brother, although he had never seen Tadashi look any different he could now recognise the signs of fatigue.

He had woken up earlier a couple of the mornings when Tadashi had accidentally disturbed him. After forcing himself not to fall back asleep, he had ended up accompanying his brother to Fred’s private gym. Well, Fred said that it was actually his dad’s gym and that he himself had never stepped foot inside of it. Hiro had mostly watched, but Tadashi had taken the time to explain what each machine did and encouraged him to try the treadmill.

Unlike his brother, physical activity had never really been Hiro’s forte and he wasn’t quite sure if it would have been even if he had been sighted all his life. He didn’t particularly enjoy the feeling of being out of breath and sweaty after a mere five minutes of exercise. If it wasn’t for the occasional walks with his brother he would have happily stayed in front of his computer or a book forever.

Their hug was interrupted, as Tadashi’s strong toned arms released him and his brother headed to the door to answer a knock that he couldn’t hear.

 

As he expected, it was Fred. He had only seen Fred’s butler once, and that was when he came in with some groceries to replenish the fridge. He hadn’t been introduced, but he had watched the man curiously. Heathcliff reminded him more of a description of a robot than a human!

Hiro watched the conversation curiously. He couldn’t see what Tadashi was saying, and Fred wasn’t using sign language. But even without sign language, Fred’s body language was always extremely exaggerated and Hiro had begun to pick up lip reading. Lip reading had been harder to pick up than he had expected and he was not as adept at it as he would have liked. The first thing he had learnt was that the term ‘lipreading’ was a misnomer — he wasn’t truly “reading” anything, only guessing a lot about what the other person was saying. Only about 30% of English speech sounds were visible on the lips with the rest occuring in the larynx and within the mouth. Lip reading wasn't so much about reading the shape of the lips, it was about getting every fifth word or so and guessing the rest through context, facial expression and body language. 

He could tell that whatever Fred was talking about, it wasn’t good. After a few minutes Tadashi had turned around and signed to him to follow them.

\---

Tadashi waited for Hiro and they went to the loungeroom together. The news was on and Fred called him over, “You're going to want to see this.”

Tadashi already knew what to expect. Fred had warned him that police had been questioning people at SFIT about his whereabouts, and Professor Callaghan had called in sick, probably consoling Aunt Cass.

 

Tadashi's heart beat rapidly as he looked at the news headline. He had been scouring the internet and the papers every morning but had yet to see mention of them yet. He was surprised it had taken this long for the police to take action.

“Amber Alert: Deafblind 14-yo Genius Boy Kidnapped by Brother Unreported for One Week” Was in bold along the bottom of the screen.

A female reporter stood outside of SFIT. He was a little surprised to see a full report on the case, with similar disappearances of kids kidnapped by relatives usually not receiving as much screen time.

“Last Saturday, the handicapped boy Hiro Hamada, aged 14 from the infamous Hamada Case 11 years ago was kidnapped by his older brother Tadashi Hamada, aged 19. The Hamada Case made headlines for fear of an outbreak of an unnamed man made biological disease took the lives of the couple and rendered their newborn completely deaf and blind.”

A picture of the smiling family showed up on the screen. His dad wearing his favourite baseball cap had a proud resting hand on young Tadashi's shoulder, while his mother was holding the baby Hiro. He forgot just how young his parents had looked, barely past the age of 30 when they had passed.

“In a shocking turn of events, surveillance footage shows Tadashi taking his younger brother in an unmarked van late on the 28th. It is reported that the perpetrator has been working on a cure for blindness and it appears he may have succeeded, not only leaving with the school-owned million dollar technology but also his brother. Here joins me Gogo Tomago who has the inside scoop on the kidnapping. Gogo, you have some shocking allegations against Tadashi Hamada. Is that correct?”

 _Here we go._ was all he thought when the camera zoomed out to feature Gogo. She looked just as fierce as he remembered her during the festival, but it was a little different. She was clearly relishing the opportunity to ruin Tadashi’s reputation, and he couldn’t blame her.

“Yes I do. I fear that Hiro is in a lot of danger with Tadashi. He's always had an unhealthy obsession with the kid.” She said bitterly. She was unable to extrapolate as the interviewer interrupted.

“It was you who notified the police of the disappearance. Cassandra Wright, the Aunt and legal guardian of the brothers has only issued one statement, she said and I quote _‘I didn't report Hiro missing because as long as he is with Tadashi, he is safe. I just want them to know that I love them and I want them to be happy.’_ we believe she is currently in custody and Child Protection Services has been notified. Miss Tomago, why do you think Tadashi has disappeared with Hiro and why do you believe he is a threat to Hiro’s safety?”

“I've known Tadashi since he has been at the institute. In that time he has shown himself to be manipulative, using underhanded tactics to get into the Honors program and using people to get what he wants with no regard for anyone else’s feelings. His obsession with Hiro is more than that of a brother and I have provided the authorities with evidence of misconduct of a sexual nature.”

“Thank-you Miss Tomago for your insight. We will have a detailed exclusive tonight of this developing story at 8:30pm.” The story finished showing an outdated picture of the brothers and a number to call for sightings.

“I guess I'm officially harboring a fugitive now.” Fred said, turning off the TV.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Tadashi said glumly. Even though he had expected the call to go out for Hiro, it felt different now that it had actually happened. It had been eerily silent on that front up until that point, and now that it was out in the open the repercussions were larger than he had anticipated.

He looked down and Hiro was watching the news intently. He knew that Hiro would have some understanding about the report, but it hadn’t been closed caption so he wouldn’t have understood it all.

 

“Hey, it's not all bad! Your Aunt doesn't hate you at least!” Fred said reassuringly. That was indeed a surprising fact. But it may have been better if she did, now she was getting in trouble for not reporting Hiro missing and they were bound to look into whether she knew or encouraged their incestual relationship. He hadn't thought about those consequences, too busy thinking only about himself and Hiro.

He had to put more thought about what to do next. He couldn't rely on Fred's hospitality forever. It was different now. While most people didn’t know that Fred even lived in a house, let alone a huge one, the faculty including Professor Callaghan definitely knew that Fred had the resources to pull off their disappearance and host him. Their fake passports were still being developed. The process of creating a passable fake had become increasingly expensive as the technology detecting fraud was near infallible. While it was easy enough to make a password that could work as identification to the naked eye, it was near impossible to obtain one that would pass through an airport database. If he hadn't of had Fred helping them it wouldn't be an option at all.

And there was still the problem of being recognised. Not by people, but by the city’s facial scanners. Not only were these in most wards of the city, but they were also used in the airport with a mandatory scan before exit. Tadashi had a contact in Tokyo that was helping them set up, but it would be difficult getting there.

Their best bet was exiting the US borders by land where security was weaker and the facial recognition scanners were subject only to randomised spot checks. Once in Mexico they could leave through the airport with their false passports, as the facial databases shouldn't read each other internationally due to a falling out between the Mexico and American governments, and they also had the backup plan of a hefty bribe, courtesy of Fred. The plan was still a gamble, but it was their best chance.

He had told Hiro briefly about his plan to move them overseas. Hiro didn't like that there were risks involved but he understood why they couldn't stay where they were forever. Hiro was right, as long as they were together, everything would be okay.

 

\---

When Fred came home from SFIT the next day and let him know that charges against Aunt Cass had been dropped because Professor Callaghan had hired some great lawyers and had attested her character. It had been taken as a case of serious misjudgement, but it was agreed that Aunt Cass would get custody of Hiro again if he was found as due to the boy’s circumstances he would need someone familiar to take care of him.

 

To further Tadashi’s relief, Hiro was usually exhausted after the lessons and slept quite peacefully. His libido had seemed to decrease quite a bit with the amount of content he was cramming. Tadashi still felt rather foolish for not monitoring what Hiro had been reading earlier, especially when he started becoming sexually active, but Hiro may have been right about it not being his place to police him. The days passed peacefully but Tadashi and Hiro both knew that the precious time of peace they had were quite limited. 

The next two weeks passed in a busy learning schedule. The mornings covering sign language, which soon had Hiro catching up to Tadashi’s level so they spent the sessions learning off of videos together. After lunch they began to study Japanese as Hiro’s grasp of sign language and English grew solid. Tadashi began to introduce Japanese lessons. This proved to be more difficult, particularly with writing. While Hiro relearnt written English quickly, he had had no prior experience to written Japanese characters. Hiragana was easy enough to pick up, but he found kanji utterly infuriating. At first Hiro used the aid of his familiar Tenji braille while reading words, until he was comfortable with the device being taken away completely. He made sure they did a lot of reading out loud, and Hiro’s pronunciation had improved tremendously since he had been able to watch Tadashi produce sound and mimic. Fred agreed and was understanding Hiro’s speech a lot better. The afternoons were spent on general subjects, and they went over the classes that he would be missing in school. Hiro looked forward to these classes the most, and he seemed to have a real affinity for the sciences.

Tadashi had temporarily suspended his development on Baymax. He had high hopes that he would be able to develop audio technology before his birthday, but it wasn’t the most pressing issue anymore, especially since Hiro had gone quite adept at communication with just his vision. 

Instead their night sessions had been replaced with going over the plan of escape. Hiro had insisted on helping out and knowing every single detail about how they were getting to Tokyo, and making up contingency plans on the chance that they got separated. Tadashi was glad that he was so involved, and Hiro had many suggestions and alterations to the plan in order to make the transition as risk free as possible.

They had finally received details about their new identities, although their broker hadn’t handed the passports over yet, refusing to give them to Heathcliff who had done the run. He had insisted on seeing Hiro and Tadashi in person before handing over the documents. Fred had said that his contact was in fact an agent, and could create legitimate passports using real people, but this of course ran a risk to himself. Hiro and Tadashi both agreed that this was the riskiest part of the operation, but as payment had already been made they had no leverage. Tadashi must have already owed Fred in the millions, and he didn’t want to ask for another favour after he had done so much.

The broker had sourced four Japanese passports for them in total. A quick background check on the names and faces from the photocopy Heathcliff brought back proved that they were legitimate and not reported as lost or stolen. Tadashi had only one new identity, Haruto Saito, which had aged him up to 24 and had an uncanny passing resemblance but didn’t look like the picture he provided. Hiro on the other hand had three new identities in total, two male and one female as Hiro had suggested. Ryo Saito, aged 11 with accompanied paperwork which proved that ‘Haruto’ was his father which would be useful for when they were settling in Tokyo for school enrolment. The second identity was Nagisa Tanaka, aged 14. The third identity was Ryota Takahashi, also aged 14, the surname matching that of his Tokyo contact but without any of the paperwork proving relation. The pictures used on all were convincing, with only slight variations between them.

After going back and forth about the best date to arrange the transaction and leave, their hand was finally forced by Heathcliff.

Fred confessed that the butler had been growing more and more uncomfortable about hosting the boys, and he was starting to get worried that he would notify his father. Heathcliff had already urged the boys to sleep in separate rooms, but that had barely lasted one night, with Hiro waking up from night terrors and wailing without Tadashi’s comforting touch.

They settled for the next date the agent was available, which was only five days away. Tadashi was just glad that it was the day after his birthday. Even though he never celebrated his birthday anymore, he was glad that it would at least be in a safe place.

Their future was uncertain, but he had to make it work.

And if it didn’t?

He was convinced that Hiro would be okay without him. He was strong, resourceful and resilient. It would be hard at first, but Tadashi had prepared him as well as he could in the short period of time they had together and as long as Hiro had Baymax, he had the opportunity to live a normal life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo.
> 
> That was a bit of a long chapter. I hope it wasn't too 'meaty' on the educational side of things, but it's one of the last chances I have to really plug the 'blind' side of things and I thought it was a good place to do so. I'm hoping that while Hiro learnt lots of new things this chapter, that you guys learnt a lot of things too! It gives you an idea of the sort of things Tadashi has been studying and why he's a bit behind the others of the gang in terms of academia. After all, rather than focusing on robotics all these years he's been busy focusing on Hiro!
> 
> Just in regard to one of the facts I put in here, just in case it's taken as fact (it's not!) "It was a bit of a Catch-22, as for about the last 20 years, the congenital blind were now largely able to be cured as infants, and those who were older usually opted to stay non-sighted due to the issues with rehabilitation." - This is only in relation to the story as they have better technology and innovations, etc.
> 
> As usual I love reviews!
> 
> And while I know where this story is heading at most key points -- I'm curious to hear some of your theories about what's going to happen next! (Honestly, I just want to see if the rest of the plot is predictable hahaha)
> 
> Oh, and let me know if you see any errors. I keep posting this thing during the early hours of the morning and not proof-reading because woops.


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